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Sample records for discriminant function incorporating

  1. Isotopic incorporation rates and discrimination factors in mantis shrimp crustaceans.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maya S deVries

    Full Text Available Stable isotope analysis has provided insights into the trophic ecology of a wide diversity of animals. Knowledge about isotopic incorporation rates and isotopic discrimination between the consumer and its diet for different tissue types is essential for interpreting stable isotope data, but these parameters remain understudied in many animal taxa and particularly in aquatic invertebrates. We performed a 292-day diet shift experiment on 92 individuals of the predatory mantis shrimp, Neogonodactylus bredini, to quantify carbon and nitrogen incorporation rates and isotope discrimination factors in muscle and hemolymph tissues. Average isotopic discrimination factors between mantis shrimp muscle and the new diet were 3.0 ± 0.6 ‰ and 0.9 ± 0.3 ‰ for carbon and nitrogen, respectively, which is contrary to what is seen in many other animals (e.g. C and N discrimination is generally 0-1 ‰ and 3-4 ‰, respectively. Surprisingly, the average residence time of nitrogen in hemolymph (28.9 ± 8.3 days was over 8 times longer than that of carbon (3.4 ± 1.4 days. In muscle, the average residence times of carbon and nitrogen were of the same magnitude (89.3 ± 44.4 and 72.8 ± 18.8 days, respectively. We compared the mantis shrimps' incorporation rates, along with rates from four other invertebrate taxa from the literature, to those predicted by an allometric equation relating carbon incorporation rate to body mass that was developed for teleost fishes and sharks. The rate of carbon incorporation into muscle was consistent with rates predicted by this equation. Our findings provide new insight into isotopic discrimination factors and incorporation rates in invertebrates with the former showing a different trend than what is commonly observed in other animals.

  2. Transferability between Hospitals of Hypercalcaemia Discriminant Functions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Frølich, Anne; McNair, Peter; Nielsen, Bo Friis

    1996-01-01

    Transferability of discriminant functions is potentially useful both from an economical point of view and because, in general, medical knowledge, in this case discriminant functions, should be transferable. In the present study we have evaluated the transferability of discriminant functions......, estimated from routine laboratory analysis, age and sex in two consecutively recorded populations with hypercalcemia including 162 and 257 patients with hypercalcemia. Discriminant functions were developed for each sex to distinguish between hypercalcemia associated with malignancy and hypercalcemia...... associated with other medical diseases. The total diagnostic accuracy in Herlev was 82 and 78%, in women and men, and increased to 87 and 86% in both sexes considering cases classified with posterior probability levels of 60%. In Hvidovre the total diagnostic accuracy was 81 and 84% in women and men...

  3. Racial discrimination and relationship functioning among African American couples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lavner, Justin A; Barton, Allen W; Bryant, Chalandra M; Beach, Steven R H

    2018-05-21

    Racial discrimination is a common stressor for African Americans, with negative consequences for mental and physical well-being. It is likely that these effects extend into the family, but little research has examined the association between racial discrimination and couple functioning. This study used dyadic data from 344 rural, predominantly low-income heterosexual African American couples with an early adolescent child to examine associations between self-reported racial discrimination, psychological and physical aggression, and relationship satisfaction and instability. Experiences of discrimination were common among men and women and were negatively associated with relationship functioning. Specifically, men reported higher levels of psychological aggression and relationship instability if they experienced higher levels of racial discrimination, and women reported higher levels of physical aggression if they experienced higher levels of racial discrimination. All results replicated when controlling for financial hardship, indicating unique effects for discrimination. Findings suggest that racial discrimination may be negatively associated with relationship functioning among African Americans and call for further research on the processes underlying these associations and their long-term consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Discrimination between underground explosions and earthquakes using discriminant functions: Examples for Eurasia and North America

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nowroozi, A.A.

    1986-01-01

    Discriminant functions are extensively used as a technical tool in educational and psychological research as well as in some branches of geological sciences. The application of this technique to the problem of discrimination between underground nuclear explosions and earthquakes has been reported. Here we apply this technique to a known population of underground nuclear explosions and earthquakes for the determination of various statistical parameters needed for setting up the discriminant function equations for discrimination between unknown population of earthquakes, anomalous events, and underground explosions, then we classify earthquakes, explosions and anomalous events in Eurasia and North America

  5. Discriminating Among Probability Weighting Functions Using Adaptive Design Optimization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cavagnaro, Daniel R.; Pitt, Mark A.; Gonzalez, Richard; Myung, Jay I.

    2014-01-01

    Probability weighting functions relate objective probabilities and their subjective weights, and play a central role in modeling choices under risk within cumulative prospect theory. While several different parametric forms have been proposed, their qualitative similarities make it challenging to discriminate among them empirically. In this paper, we use both simulation and choice experiments to investigate the extent to which different parametric forms of the probability weighting function can be discriminated using adaptive design optimization, a computer-based methodology that identifies and exploits model differences for the purpose of model discrimination. The simulation experiments show that the correct (data-generating) form can be conclusively discriminated from its competitors. The results of an empirical experiment reveal heterogeneity between participants in terms of the functional form, with two models (Prelec-2, Linear in Log Odds) emerging as the most common best-fitting models. The findings shed light on assumptions underlying these models. PMID:24453406

  6. Functional discrimination of membrane proteins using machine learning techniques

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yabuki Yukimitsu

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Discriminating membrane proteins based on their functions is an important task in genome annotation. In this work, we have analyzed the characteristic features of amino acid residues in membrane proteins that perform major functions, such as channels/pores, electrochemical potential-driven transporters and primary active transporters. Results We observed that the residues Asp, Asn and Tyr are dominant in channels/pores whereas the composition of hydrophobic residues, Phe, Gly, Ile, Leu and Val is high in electrochemical potential-driven transporters. The composition of all the amino acids in primary active transporters lies in between other two classes of proteins. We have utilized different machine learning algorithms, such as, Bayes rule, Logistic function, Neural network, Support vector machine, Decision tree etc. for discriminating these classes of proteins. We observed that most of the algorithms have discriminated them with similar accuracy. The neural network method discriminated the channels/pores, electrochemical potential-driven transporters and active transporters with the 5-fold cross validation accuracy of 64% in a data set of 1718 membrane proteins. The application of amino acid occurrence improved the overall accuracy to 68%. In addition, we have discriminated transporters from other α-helical and β-barrel membrane proteins with the accuracy of 85% using k-nearest neighbor method. The classification of transporters and all other proteins (globular and membrane showed the accuracy of 82%. Conclusion The performance of discrimination with amino acid occurrence is better than that with amino acid composition. We suggest that this method could be effectively used to discriminate transporters from all other globular and membrane proteins, and classify them into channels/pores, electrochemical and active transporters.

  7. Incorporating functional inter-relationships into protein function prediction algorithms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kumar Vipin

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Functional classification schemes (e.g. the Gene Ontology that serve as the basis for annotation efforts in several organisms are often the source of gold standard information for computational efforts at supervised protein function prediction. While successful function prediction algorithms have been developed, few previous efforts have utilized more than the protein-to-functional class label information provided by such knowledge bases. For instance, the Gene Ontology not only captures protein annotations to a set of functional classes, but it also arranges these classes in a DAG-based hierarchy that captures rich inter-relationships between different classes. These inter-relationships present both opportunities, such as the potential for additional training examples for small classes from larger related classes, and challenges, such as a harder to learn distinction between similar GO terms, for standard classification-based approaches. Results We propose a method to enhance the performance of classification-based protein function prediction algorithms by addressing the issue of using these interrelationships between functional classes constituting functional classification schemes. Using a standard measure for evaluating the semantic similarity between nodes in an ontology, we quantify and incorporate these inter-relationships into the k-nearest neighbor classifier. We present experiments on several large genomic data sets, each of which is used for the modeling and prediction of over hundred classes from the GO Biological Process ontology. The results show that this incorporation produces more accurate predictions for a large number of the functional classes considered, and also that the classes benefitted most by this approach are those containing the fewest members. In addition, we show how our proposed framework can be used for integrating information from the entire GO hierarchy for improving the accuracy of

  8. Perceived discrimination, family functioning, and depressive symptoms among immigrant women in Taiwan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Hao-Jan; Wu, Jyun-Yi; Huang, Sheng-Shiung; Lien, Mei-Huei; Lee, Tony Szu-Hsien

    2014-10-01

    This study examined the moderating effect of family functioning on the relationship between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms in immigrant women. A total of 239 immigrant women were selected from four administrative regions in Central Taiwan. Questionnaires concerning perceived discrimination, family functioning (including family cohesion and family adaptability), depressive symptoms, and demographic characteristics were completed by either women themselves (N = 120) or their husbands (N = 119). The moderating effect of family functioning on the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression symptoms was analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Findings showed that a higher level of perceived discrimination among immigrant women is associated with more severe depressive symptoms. Family functioning serves as a moderator between the relationship of perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms, but the moderating effect of family adaptability was evident only in data reported by immigrant women. The results indicate that perceived discrimination has negative mental health implications, and also point to the importance of family functioning for depression. Findings suggest that providers should consider addressing immigrant women's mental health needs through declining their psychosocial distress at multiple ecological levels.

  9. Perceived Discrimination and Longitudinal Change in Kidney Function Among Urban Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beydoun, May A; Poggi-Burke, Angedith; Zonderman, Alan B; Rostant, Ola S; Evans, Michele K; Crews, Deidra C

    2017-09-01

    Perceived discrimination has been associated with psychosocial distress and adverse health outcomes. We examined associations of perceived discrimination measures with changes in kidney function in a prospective cohort study, the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span. Our study included 1620 participants with preserved baseline kidney function (estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] ≥ 60 mL/min/1.73 m) (662 whites and 958 African Americans, aged 30-64 years). Self-reported perceived racial discrimination and perceived gender discrimination (PGD) and a general measure of experience of discrimination (EOD) ("medium versus low," "high versus low") were examined in relation to baseline, follow-up, and annual rate of change in eGFR using multiple mixed-effects regression (γbase, γrate) and ordinary least square models (γfollow). Perceived gender discrimination "high versus low PGD" was associated with a lower baseline eGFR in all models (γbase = -3.51 (1.34), p = .009 for total sample). Among white women, high EOD was associated with lower baseline eGFR, an effect that was strengthened in the full model (γbase = -5.86 [2.52], p = .020). Overall, "high versus low" PGD was associated with lower follow-up eGFR (γfollow = -3.03 [1.45], p = .036). Among African American women, both perceived racial discrimination and PGD were linked to lower follow-up kidney function, an effect that was attenuated with covariate adjustment, indicating mediation through health-related, psychosocial, and lifestyle factors. In contrast, EOD was not linked to follow-up eGFR in any of the sex by race groups. Perceived racial and gender discrimination are associated with lower kidney function assessed by glomerular filtration rate and the strength of associations differ by sex and race groups. Perceived discrimination deserves further investigation as a psychosocial risk factors for kidney disease.

  10. A Trivial Linear Discriminant Function

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuichi Shinmura

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we focus on the new model selection procedure of the discriminant analysis. Combining re-sampling technique with k-fold cross validation, we develop a k-fold cross validation for small sample method. By this breakthrough, we obtain the mean error rate in the validation samples (M2 and the 95\\% confidence interval (CI of discriminant coefficient. Moreover, we propose the model  selection  procedure  in  which  the model having a minimum M2 was  chosen  to  the  best  model.  We  apply  this  new  method and procedure to the pass/ fail determination of  exam  scores.  In  this  case,  we  fix  the constant =1 for seven linear discriminant  functions  (LDFs  and  several  good  results  were obtained as follows: 1 M2 of Fisher's LDF are over 4.6\\% worse than Revised IP-OLDF. 2 A soft-margin  SVM  for  penalty c=1  (SVM1  is  worse  than  another  mathematical  programming (MP based LDFs and logistic regression . 3 The 95\\% CI of the best discriminant coefficients was obtained. Seven LDFs except for Fisher's LDF are almost the same as a trivial LDF for the linear separable model. Furthermore, if we choose the median of the coefficient of seven LDFs except for Fisher's LDF,  those are almost the same as the trivial LDF for the linear separable model.

  11. Aberrant functional connectivity for diagnosis of major depressive disorder: a discriminant analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Longlong; Guo, Shuixia; Xue, Zhimin; Hu, Yong; Liu, Haihong; Mwansisya, Tumbwene E; Pu, Weidan; Yang, Bo; Liu, Chang; Feng, Jianfeng; Chen, Eric Y H; Liu, Zhening

    2014-02-01

    Aberrant brain functional connectivity patterns have been reported in major depressive disorder (MDD). It is unknown whether they can be used in discriminant analysis for diagnosis of MDD. In the present study we examined the efficiency of discriminant analysis of MDD by individualized computer-assisted diagnosis. Based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data, a new approach was adopted to investigate functional connectivity changes in 39 MDD patients and 37 well-matched healthy controls. By using the proposed feature selection method, we identified significant altered functional connections in patients. They were subsequently applied to our analysis as discriminant features using a support vector machine classification method. Furthermore, the relative contribution of functional connectivity was estimated. After subset selection of high-dimension features, the support vector machine classifier reached up to approximately 84% with leave-one-out training during the discrimination process. Through summarizing the classification contribution of functional connectivities, we obtained four obvious contribution modules: inferior orbitofrontal module, supramarginal gyrus module, inferior parietal lobule-posterior cingulated gyrus module and middle temporal gyrus-inferior temporal gyrus module. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method is effective in discriminating MDD patients from healthy controls. Functional connectivities might be useful as new biomarkers to assist clinicians in computer auxiliary diagnosis of MDD. © 2013 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2013 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

  12. Discriminant Function Analysis as a Proof for Sexual Dimorphism ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Background: Forensic scientists study human skeleton in legal setting. Discriminant function analysis has become important in forensic anthropology. The aim of this study was to determine the sex of adolescent Yoruba ethnic group of Nigeria using iscriminant function analysis. Methodology: One thousand (500 males and ...

  13. Discrimination Factors and Incorporation Rates for Organic Matrix in Shark Teeth Based on a Captive Feeding Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeichner, S S; Colman, A S; Koch, P L; Polo-Silva, C; Galván-Magaña, F; Kim, S L

    Sharks migrate annually over large distances and occupy a wide variety of habitats, complicating analysis of lifestyle and diet. A biogeochemical technique often used to reconstruct shark diet and environment preferences is stable isotope analysis, which is minimally invasive and integrates through time and space. There are previous studies that focus on isotopic analysis of shark soft tissues, but there are limited applications to shark teeth. However, shark teeth offer an advantage of multiple ecological snapshots and minimum invasiveness during removal because of their distinct conveyor belt tooth replacement system. In this study, we analyze δ 13 C and δ 15 N values of the organic matrix in leopard shark teeth (Triakis semifasciata) from a captive experiment and report discrimination factors as well as incorporation rates. We found differences in tooth discrimination factors for individuals fed different prey sources (mean ± SD; Δ 13 C squid = 4.7‰ ± 0.5‰, Δ 13 C tilapia = 3.1‰ ± 1.0‰, Δ 15 N squid = 2.0‰ ± 0.7‰, Δ 15 N tilapia = 2.8‰ ± 0.6‰). In addition, these values differed from previously published discrimination factors for plasma, red blood cells, and muscle of the same leopard sharks. Incorporation rates of shark teeth were similar for carbon and nitrogen (mean ± SE; λ C = 0.021 ± 0.009, λ N = 0.024 ± 0.007) and comparable to those of plasma. We emphasize the difference in biological parameters on the basis of tissue substrate and diet items to interpret stable isotope data and apply our results to stable isotope values from blue shark (Prionace glauca) teeth to illustrate the importance of biological parameters to interpret the complex ecology of a migratory shark.

  14. Discriminant analysis of functional optical topography for schizophrenia diagnosis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuang, Ching-Cheng; Nakagome, Kazuyuki; Pu, Shenghong; Lan, Tsuo-Hung; Lee, Chia-Yen; Sun, Chia-Wei

    2014-01-01

    Abnormal prefrontal function plays a central role in the cognition deficits of schizophrenic patients; however, the character of the relationship between discriminant analysis and prefrontal activation remains undetermined. Recently, evidence of low prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation in individuals with schizophrenia has also been found during verbal fluency tests (VFT) and other cognitive tests with several neuroimaging methods. The purpose of this study is to assess the hemodynamic changes of the PFC and discriminant analysis between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls during VFT task by utilizing functional optical topography. A total of 99 subjects including 53 schizophrenic patients and 46 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were studied. The results showed that the healthy group had larger activation in the right and left PFC than in the middle PFC. Besides, the schizophrenic group showed weaker task performance and lower activation in the whole PFC than the healthy group. The result of the discriminant analysis showed a significant difference with P value <0.001 in six channels (CH 23, 29, 31, 40, 42, 52) between the schizophrenic and healthy groups. Finally, 68.69% and 71.72% of subjects are correctly classified as being schizophrenic or healthy with all 52 channels and six significantly different channels, respectively. Our findings suggest that the left PFC can be a feature region for discriminant analysis of schizophrenic diagnosis.

  15. Dynamic functional brain networks involved in simple visual discrimination learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fidalgo, Camino; Conejo, Nélida María; González-Pardo, Héctor; Arias, Jorge Luis

    2014-10-01

    Visual discrimination tasks have been widely used to evaluate many types of learning and memory processes. However, little is known about the brain regions involved at different stages of visual discrimination learning. We used cytochrome c oxidase histochemistry to evaluate changes in regional brain oxidative metabolism during visual discrimination learning in a water-T maze at different time points during training. As compared with control groups, the results of the present study reveal the gradual activation of cortical (prefrontal and temporal cortices) and subcortical brain regions (including the striatum and the hippocampus) associated to the mastery of a simple visual discrimination task. On the other hand, the brain regions involved and their functional interactions changed progressively over days of training. Regions associated with novelty, emotion, visuo-spatial orientation and motor aspects of the behavioral task seem to be relevant during the earlier phase of training, whereas a brain network comprising the prefrontal cortex was found along the whole learning process. This study highlights the relevance of functional interactions among brain regions to investigate learning and memory processes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Neutron-gamma discrimination in mixed field by pulse shape discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sharghi Ido, A.; Shahriari, M.; Etaati, G. R.

    2009-01-01

    In this study, a pulse shape discriminator, incorporating zero-crossing method has been developed. The separate measurements with 241 Am-Be and 252 Cf sources undertaken by BC501A liquid have shown that the purposed and the common-used pulse shape discriminator's are in good agreement. The improved characteristics of the presented pulse shape discriminator are FOM=1.36 at a threshold of 60 ke Vee and 1.5μsec dead time which allows the count rates up to 50 k Hz

  17. Item information and discrimination functions for trinary PCM items

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Akkermans, Wies; Muraki, Eiji

    1997-01-01

    For trinary partial credit items the shape of the item information and the item discrimination function is examined in relation to the item parameters. In particular, it is shown that these functions are unimodal if δ2 – δ1 < 4 ln 2 and bimodal otherwise. The locations and values of the maxima are

  18. How discriminating are discriminative instruments?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hankins, Matthew

    2008-05-27

    The McMaster framework introduced by Kirshner & Guyatt is the dominant paradigm for the development of measures of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL). The framework defines the functions of such instruments as evaluative, predictive or discriminative. Evaluative instruments are required to be sensitive to change (responsiveness), but there is no corresponding index of the degree to which discriminative instruments are sensitive to cross-sectional differences. This paper argues that indices of validity and reliability are not sufficient to demonstrate that a discriminative instrument performs its function of discriminating between individuals, and that the McMaster framework would be augmented by the addition of a separate index of discrimination. The coefficient proposed by Ferguson (Delta) is easily adapted to HRQL instruments and is a direct, non-parametric index of the degree to which an instrument distinguishes between individuals. While Delta should prove useful in the development and evaluation of discriminative instruments, further research is required to elucidate the relationship between the measurement properties of discrimination, reliability and responsiveness.

  19. How discriminating are discriminative instruments?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hankins Matthew

    2008-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The McMaster framework introduced by Kirshner & Guyatt is the dominant paradigm for the development of measures of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL. The framework defines the functions of such instruments as evaluative, predictive or discriminative. Evaluative instruments are required to be sensitive to change (responsiveness, but there is no corresponding index of the degree to which discriminative instruments are sensitive to cross-sectional differences. This paper argues that indices of validity and reliability are not sufficient to demonstrate that a discriminative instrument performs its function of discriminating between individuals, and that the McMaster framework would be augmented by the addition of a separate index of discrimination. The coefficient proposed by Ferguson (Delta is easily adapted to HRQL instruments and is a direct, non-parametric index of the degree to which an instrument distinguishes between individuals. While Delta should prove useful in the development and evaluation of discriminative instruments, further research is required to elucidate the relationship between the measurement properties of discrimination, reliability and responsiveness.

  20. Phylogenetic comparative methods complement discriminant function analysis in ecomorphology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barr, W Andrew; Scott, Robert S

    2014-04-01

    In ecomorphology, Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) has been used as evidence for the presence of functional links between morphometric variables and ecological categories. Here we conduct simulations of characters containing phylogenetic signal to explore the performance of DFA under a variety of conditions. Characters were simulated using a phylogeny of extant antelope species from known habitats. Characters were modeled with no biomechanical relationship to the habitat category; the only sources of variation were body mass, phylogenetic signal, or random "noise." DFA on the discriminability of habitat categories was performed using subsets of the simulated characters, and Phylogenetic Generalized Least Squares (PGLS) was performed for each character. Analyses were repeated with randomized habitat assignments. When simulated characters lacked phylogenetic signal and/or habitat assignments were random, ecomorphology. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. Joint entropy for space and spatial frequency domains estimated from psychometric functions of achromatic discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silveira, Vladímir de Aquino; Souza, Givago da Silva; Gomes, Bruno Duarte; Rodrigues, Anderson Raiol; Silveira, Luiz Carlos de Lima

    2014-01-01

    We used psychometric functions to estimate the joint entropy for space discrimination and spatial frequency discrimination. Space discrimination was taken as discrimination of spatial extent. Seven subjects were tested. Gábor functions comprising unidimensionalsinusoidal gratings (0.4, 2, and 10 cpd) and bidimensionalGaussian envelopes (1°) were used as reference stimuli. The experiment comprised the comparison between reference and test stimulithat differed in grating's spatial frequency or envelope's standard deviation. We tested 21 different envelope's standard deviations around the reference standard deviation to study spatial extent discrimination and 19 different grating's spatial frequencies around the reference spatial frequency to study spatial frequency discrimination. Two series of psychometric functions were obtained for 2%, 5%, 10%, and 100% stimulus contrast. The psychometric function data points for spatial extent discrimination or spatial frequency discrimination were fitted with Gaussian functions using the least square method, and the spatial extent and spatial frequency entropies were estimated from the standard deviation of these Gaussian functions. Then, joint entropy was obtained by multiplying the square root of space extent entropy times the spatial frequency entropy. We compared our results to the theoretical minimum for unidimensional Gábor functions, 1/4π or 0.0796. At low and intermediate spatial frequencies and high contrasts, joint entropy reached levels below the theoretical minimum, suggesting non-linear interactions between two or more visual mechanisms. We concluded that non-linear interactions of visual pathways, such as the M and P pathways, could explain joint entropy values below the theoretical minimum at low and intermediate spatial frequencies and high contrasts. These non-linear interactions might be at work at intermediate and high contrasts at all spatial frequencies once there was a substantial decrease in joint

  2. Phonological experience modulates voice discrimination: Evidence from functional brain networks analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xueping; Wang, Xiangpeng; Gu, Yan; Luo, Pei; Yin, Shouhang; Wang, Lijun; Fu, Chao; Qiao, Lei; Du, Yi; Chen, Antao

    2017-10-01

    Numerous behavioral studies have found a modulation effect of phonological experience on voice discrimination. However, the neural substrates underpinning this phenomenon are poorly understood. Here we manipulated language familiarity to test the hypothesis that phonological experience affects voice discrimination via mediating the engagement of multiple perceptual and cognitive resources. The results showed that during voice discrimination, the activation of several prefrontal regions was modulated by language familiarity. More importantly, the same effect was observed concerning the functional connectivity from the fronto-parietal network to the voice-identity network (VIN), and from the default mode network to the VIN. Our findings indicate that phonological experience could bias the recruitment of cognitive control and information retrieval/comparison processes during voice discrimination. Therefore, the study unravels the neural substrates subserving the modulation effect of phonological experience on voice discrimination, and provides new insights into studying voice discrimination from the perspective of network interactions. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  3. Assessment of Differential Item Functioning in the Experiences of Discrimination Index

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cunningham, Timothy J.; Berkman, Lisa F.; Gortmaker, Steven L.; Kiefe, Catarina I.; Jacobs, David R.; Seeman, Teresa E.; Kawachi, Ichiro

    2011-01-01

    The psychometric properties of instruments used to measure self-reported experiences of discrimination in epidemiologic studies are rarely assessed, especially regarding construct validity. The authors used 2000–2001 data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study to examine differential item functioning (DIF) in 2 versions of the Experiences of Discrimination (EOD) Index, an index measuring self-reported experiences of racial/ethnic and gender discrimination. DIF may confound interpretation of subgroup differences. Large DIF was observed for 2 of 7 racial/ethnic discrimination items: White participants reported more racial/ethnic discrimination for the “at school” item, and black participants reported more racial/ethnic discrimination for the “getting housing” item. The large DIF by race/ethnicity in the index for racial/ethnic discrimination probably reflects item impact and is the result of valid group differences between blacks and whites regarding their respective experiences of discrimination. The authors also observed large DIF by race/ethnicity for 3 of 7 gender discrimination items. This is more likely to have been due to item bias. Users of the EOD Index must consider the advantages and disadvantages of DIF adjustment (omitting items, constructing separate measures, and retaining items). The EOD Index has substantial usefulness as an instrument that can assess self-reported experiences of discrimination. PMID:22038104

  4. Use of linear discriminant function analysis in seed morphotype ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Use of linear discriminant function analysis in seed morphotype relationship study in 31 ... Data were collected on 100-seed weight, seed length and seed width. ... to the Mesoamerican gene pool, comprising the cultigroups Sieva-Big Lima, ...

  5. Isotopic incorporation and the effects of fasting and dietary lipid content on isotopic discrimination in large carnivorous mammals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rode, Karyn D.; Stricker, Craig A.; Erlenbach, Joy; Robbins, Charles T.; Cherry, Seth; Newsome, Seth D.; Cutting, Amy; Jensen, Shannon; Stenhouse, Gordon; Brooks, Matt; Hash, Amy; Nicassio, Nicole

    2016-01-01

    There has been considerable emphasis on understanding isotopic discrimination for diet estimation in omnivores. However, discrimination may differ for carnivores, particularly species that consume lipid-rich diets. Here, we examined the potential implications of several factors when using stable isotopes to estimate the diets of bears, which can consume lipid-rich diets and, alternatively, fast for weeks to months. We conducted feeding trials with captive brown bears (Ursus arctos) and polar bears (Ursus maritimus). As dietary lipid content increased to ∼90%, we observed increasing differences between blood plasma and diets that had not been lipid extracted (∆13Ctissue-bulk diet) and slightly decreasing differences between plasma δ13C and lipid-extracted diet. Plasma Δ15Ntissue-bulk diet increased with increasing protein content for the four polar bears in this study and data for other mammals from previous studies that were fed purely carnivorous diets. Four adult and four yearling brown bears that fasted 120 d had plasma δ15N values that changed by <±2‰. Fasting bears exhibited no trend in plasma δ13C. Isotopic incorporation in red blood cells and whole blood was ≥6 mo in subadult and adult bears, which is considerably longer than previously measured in younger and smaller black bears (Ursus americanus). Our results suggest that short-term fasting in carnivores has minimal effects on δ13C and δ15N discrimination between predators and their prey but that dietary lipid content is an important factor directly affecting δ13C discrimination and indirectly affecting δ15N discrimination via the inverse relationship with dietary protein content.

  6. Tailoring a psychophysical discrimination experiment upon assessment of the psychometric function: Predictions and results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vilardi, Andrea; Tabarelli, Davide; Ricci, Leonardo

    2015-02-01

    Decision making is a widespread research topic and plays a crucial role in neuroscience as well as in other research and application fields of, for example, biology, medicine and economics. The most basic implementation of decision making, namely binary discrimination, is successfully interpreted by means of signal detection theory (SDT), a statistical model that is deeply linked to physics. An additional, widespread tool to investigate discrimination ability is the psychometric function, which measures the probability of a given response as a function of the magnitude of a physical quantity underlying the stimulus. However, the link between psychometric functions and binary discrimination experiments is often neglected or misinterpreted. Aim of the present paper is to provide a detailed description of an experimental investigation on a prototypical discrimination task and to discuss the results in terms of SDT. To this purpose, we provide an outline of the theory and describe the implementation of two behavioural experiments in the visual modality: upon the assessment of the so-called psychometric function, we show how to tailor a binary discrimination experiment on performance and decisional bias, and to measure these quantities on a statistical base. Attention is devoted to the evaluation of uncertainties, an aspect which is also often overlooked in the scientific literature.

  7. Discriminants and functional equations for polynomials orthogonal on the unit circle

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ismail, M.E.H.; Witte, N.S.

    2000-01-01

    We derive raising and lowering operators for orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle and find second order differential and q-difference equations for these polynomials. A general functional equation is found which allows one to relate the zeros of the orthogonal polynomials to the stationary values of an explicit quasi-energy and implies recurrences on the orthogonal polynomial coefficients. We also evaluate the discriminants and quantized discriminants of polynomials orthogonal on the unit circle

  8. Temporal discrimination, a cervical dystonia endophenotype: penetrance and functional correlates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kimmich, Okka; Molloy, Anna; Whelan, Robert; Williams, Laura; Bradley, David; Balsters, Joshua; Molloy, Fiona; Lynch, Tim; Healy, Daniel G; Walsh, Cathal; O'Riordan, Seán; Reilly, Richard B; Hutchinson, Michael

    2014-05-01

    The pathogenesis of adult-onset primary dystonia remains poorly understood. There is variable age-related and gender-related expression of the phenotype, the commonest of which is cervical dystonia. Endophenotypes may provide insight into underlying genetic and pathophysiological mechanisms of dystonia. The temporal discrimination threshold (TDT)-the shortest time interval at which two separate stimuli can be detected as being asynchronous-is abnormal both in patients with cervical dystonia and in their unaffected first-degree relatives. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that putaminal activation positively correlates with the ease of temporal discrimination between two stimuli in healthy individuals. We hypothesized that abnormal temporal discrimination would exhibit similar age-related and gender-related penetrance as cervical dystonia and that unaffected relatives with an abnormal TDT would have reduced putaminal activation during a temporal discrimination task. TDTs were examined in a group of 192 healthy controls and in 158 unaffected first-degree relatives of 84 patients with cervical dystonia. In 24 unaffected first-degree relatives, fMRI scanning was performed during a temporal discrimination task. The prevalence of abnormal TDTs in unaffected female relatives reached 50% after age 48 years; whereas, in male relatives, penetrance of the endophenotype was reduced. By fMRI, relatives who had abnormal TDTs, compared with relatives who had normal TDTs, had significantly less activation in the putamina and in the middle frontal and precentral gyri. Only the degree of reduction of putaminal activity correlated significantly with worsening of temporal discrimination. These findings further support abnormal temporal discrimination as an endophenotype of cervical dystonia involving disordered basal ganglia circuits. © 2014 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

  9. The reliability of morphometric discriminant functions in determining the sex of Chilean flamingos Phoenicopterus chilensis

    OpenAIRE

    Diego MONTALTI et al

    2012-01-01

    Monomorphic birds cannot be sexed visually and discriminant functions on the basis of external morphological variations are frequently used. Our objective was to evaluate the reliability of sex classification functions created from structural measurements of Chilean flamingos Phoenicopterus chilensis museum skins for the gender assignment of live birds. Five measurements were used to develop four discriminant functions: culmen, bill height and width, tarsus length and middle toe claw. The fun...

  10. Non-Functional Requirements Elicitation and Incorporation into Class Diagrams

    OpenAIRE

    Song , Xiaoyu; Duan , Zhenhua; Tian , Cong

    2010-01-01

    International audience; Top-quality software architecture should consider both functional and non-functional aspects of systems and their association. In the the existing literature, considerable efforts have been directed at functional requirement analysis and design, regardless of the non-functional aspects. This disassociation makes architecture comprehension and evolution hard. This paper proposes a strategy on how to elicit non-functional requirements and incorporate them into the design...

  11. Testing for Statistical Discrimination based on Gender

    OpenAIRE

    Lesner, Rune Vammen

    2016-01-01

    This paper develops a model which incorporates the two most commonly cited strands of the literature on statistical discrimination, namely screening discrimination and stereotyping. The model is used to provide empirical evidence of statistical discrimination based on gender in the labour market. It is shown that the implications of both screening discrimination and stereotyping are consistent with observable wage dynamics. In addition, it is found that the gender wage gap decreases in tenure...

  12. Discriminative Multi-View Interactive Image Re-Ranking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jun; Xu, Chang; Yang, Wankou; Sun, Changyin; Tao, Dacheng

    2017-07-01

    Given an unreliable visual patterns and insufficient query information, content-based image retrieval is often suboptimal and requires image re-ranking using auxiliary information. In this paper, we propose a discriminative multi-view interactive image re-ranking (DMINTIR), which integrates user relevance feedback capturing users' intentions and multiple features that sufficiently describe the images. In DMINTIR, heterogeneous property features are incorporated in the multi-view learning scheme to exploit their complementarities. In addition, a discriminatively learned weight vector is obtained to reassign updated scores and target images for re-ranking. Compared with other multi-view learning techniques, our scheme not only generates a compact representation in the latent space from the redundant multi-view features but also maximally preserves the discriminative information in feature encoding by the large-margin principle. Furthermore, the generalization error bound of the proposed algorithm is theoretically analyzed and shown to be improved by the interactions between the latent space and discriminant function learning. Experimental results on two benchmark data sets demonstrate that our approach boosts baseline retrieval quality and is competitive with the other state-of-the-art re-ranking strategies.

  13. Relation between functional connectivity and rhythm discrimination in children who do and do not stutter

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Soo-Eun Chang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Our ability to perceive and produce rhythmic patterns in the environment supports fundamental human capacities ranging from music and language processing to the coordination of action. This article considers whether spontaneous correlated brain activity within a basal ganglia-thalamocortical (rhythm network is associated with individual differences in auditory rhythm discrimination. Moreover, do children who stutter with demonstrated deficits in rhythm perception have weaker links between rhythm network functional connectivity and rhythm discrimination? All children in the study underwent a resting-state fMRI session, from which functional connectivity measures within the rhythm network were extracted from spontaneous brain activity. In a separate session, the same children completed an auditory rhythm-discrimination task, where behavioral performance was assessed using signal detection analysis. We hypothesized that in typically developing children, rhythm network functional connectivity would be associated with behavioral performance on the rhythm discrimination task, but that this relationship would be attenuated in children who stutter. Results supported our hypotheses, lending strong support for the view that (1 children who stutter have weaker rhythm network connectivity and (2 the lack of a relation between rhythm network connectivity and rhythm discrimination in children who stutter may be an important contributing factor to the etiology of stuttering.

  14. Discrimination Power of Polynomial-Based Descriptors for Graphs by Using Functional Matrices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dehmer, Matthias; Emmert-Streib, Frank; Shi, Yongtang; Stefu, Monica; Tripathi, Shailesh

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we study the discrimination power of graph measures that are based on graph-theoretical matrices. The paper generalizes the work of [M. Dehmer, M. Moosbrugger. Y. Shi, Encoding structural information uniquely with polynomial-based descriptors by employing the Randić matrix, Applied Mathematics and Computation, 268(2015), 164-168]. We demonstrate that by using the new functional matrix approach, exhaustively generated graphs can be discriminated more uniquely than shown in the mentioned previous work.

  15. Testing for Statistical Discrimination based on Gender

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lesner, Rune Vammen

    . It is shown that the implications of both screening discrimination and stereotyping are consistent with observable wage dynamics. In addition, it is found that the gender wage gap decreases in tenure but increases in job transitions and that the fraction of women in high-ranking positions within a firm does......This paper develops a model which incorporates the two most commonly cited strands of the literature on statistical discrimination, namely screening discrimination and stereotyping. The model is used to provide empirical evidence of statistical discrimination based on gender in the labour market...... not affect the level of statistical discrimination by gender....

  16. Frontotemporal Dysfunction in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Discriminant Function Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nidos, Andreas; Kasselimis, Dimitrios S; Simos, Panagiotis G; Rentzos, Michael; Alexakis, Theodoros; Zalonis, Ioannis; Zouvelou, Vassiliki; Potagas, Constantin; Evdokimidis, Ioannis; Woolley, Susan C

    2016-01-01

    There is growing evidence for extramotor dysfunction (EMd) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with a reported prevalence of up to 52%. In the present study, we explore the clinical utility of a brief neuropsychological battery for the investigation of cognitive, behavioral, and language deficits in patients with ALS. Thirty-four consecutive ALS patients aged 44-89 years were tested with a brief neuropsychological battery, including executive, behavioral, and language measures. Patients were initially classified as EMd or non-EMd based on their scores on the frontal assessment battery (FAB). Between-group comparisons revealed significant differences in all measures (p < 0.01). Discriminant analysis resulted in a single canonical function, with all tests serving as significant predictors. This function agreed with the FAB in 13 of 17 patients screened as EMd and identified extramotor deficits in 2 additional patients. Overall sensitivity and specificity estimates against FAB were 88.2%. We stress the importance of discriminant function analysis in clinical neuropsychological assessment and argue that the proposed neuropsychological battery may be of clinical value, especially when the option of extensive and comprehensive neuropsychological testing is limited. The psychometric validity of an ALS-frontotemporal dementia diagnosis using neuropsychological tests is also discussed. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  17. Experiments performed with a functional model based on statistical discrimination in mixed nuclear radiation field

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valcov, N.; Celarel, A.; Purghel, L.

    1999-01-01

    By using the statistical discrimination technique, the components of on ionization current, due to a mixed radiation field, may be simultaneously measured. A functional model, including a serially manufactured gamma-ray ratemeter was developed, as an intermediate step in the design of specialised nuclear instrumentation, in order to check the concept of statistical discrimination method. The obtained results are in good agreement with the estimations of the statistical discrimination method. The main characteristics of the functional model are the following: - dynamic range of measurement: >300: l; - simultaneous measurement of natural radiation background and gamma-ray fields; - accuracy (for equal exposure rates from gamma's and natural radiation background): 17%, for both radiation fields; - minimum detectable exposure rate: 2μR/h. (authors)

  18. SPEECH EMOTION RECOGNITION USING MODIFIED QUADRATIC DISCRIMINATION FUNCTION

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2008-01-01

    Quadratic Discrimination Function(QDF)is commonly used in speech emotion recognition,which proceeds on the premise that the input data is normal distribution.In this Paper,we propose a transformation to normalize the emotional features,then derivate a Modified QDF(MQDF) to speech emotion recognition.Features based on prosody and voice quality are extracted and Principal Component Analysis Neural Network (PCANN) is used to reduce dimension of the feature vectors.The results show that voice quality features are effective supplement for recognition.and the method in this paper could improve the recognition ratio effectively.

  19. Discrimination and sleep: a systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slopen, Natalie; Lewis, Tené T; Williams, David R

    2016-02-01

    An increasing body of literature indicates that discrimination has a negative impact on health; poor sleep may be an underlying mechanism. The primary objective of this review was to examine existing studies on the relationship between discrimination and sleep to clarify (a) the potential role of discrimination in shaping population patterns of sleep and sleep disparities, and (b) the research needed to develop interventions at individual and institutional levels. We identified articles from English-language publications in PubMed and EBSCO databases from inception through July 2014. We employed a broad definition of discrimination to include any form of unfair treatment and all self-reported and objectively assessed sleep outcomes, including duration, difficulties, and sleep architecture. Seventeen studies were identified: four prospective, 12 cross-sectional, and one that utilized a daily-diary design. Fifteen of the 17 studies evaluated interpersonal discrimination as the exposure and the majority of studies included self-reported sleep as the outcome. Only four studies incorporated objective sleep assessments. All 17 studies identified at least one association between discrimination and a measure of poorer sleep, although studies with more detailed consideration of either discrimination or sleep architecture revealed some inconsistencies. Taken together, existing studies demonstrate consistent evidence that discrimination is associated with poorer sleep outcomes. This evidence base can be strengthened with additional prospective studies that incorporate objectively measured aspects of sleep. We outline important extensions for this field of inquiry that can inform the development of interventions to improve sleep outcomes, and consequently promote well-being and reduce health inequities across the life course. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Discriminative analysis of Parkinson's disease based on whole-brain functional connectivity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yongbin Chen

    Full Text Available Recently, there has been an increasing emphasis on applications of pattern recognition and neuroimaging techniques in the effective and accurate diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders. In the present study, we investigated the whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity patterns of Parkinson's disease (PD, which are expected to provide additional information for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of this disease. First, we computed the functional connectivity between each pair of 116 regions of interest derived from a prior atlas. The most discriminative features based on Kendall tau correlation coefficient were then selected. A support vector machine classifier was employed to classify 21 PD patients with 26 demographically matched healthy controls. This method achieved a classification accuracy of 93.62% using leave-one-out cross-validation, with a sensitivity of 90.47% and a specificity of 96.15%. The majority of the most discriminative functional connections were located within or across the default mode, cingulo-opercular and frontal-parietal networks and the cerebellum. These disease-related resting-state network alterations might play important roles in the pathophysiology of this disease. Our results suggest that analyses of whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity patterns have the potential to improve the clinical diagnosis and treatment evaluation of PD.

  1. Pinpointing the classifiers of English language writing ability: A discriminant function analysis approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Ali Shams

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available     The major aim of this paper was to investigate the validity of language and intelligence factors for classifying Iranian English learners` writing performance. Iranian participants of the study took three tests for grammar, breadth, and depth of vocabulary, and two tests for verbal and narrative intelligence. They also produced a corpus of argumentative writings in answer to IELTS specimen. Several runs of discriminant function analyses were used to examine the classifying power of the five variables for discriminating between low and high ability L2 writers. The results revealed that among language factors, depth of vocabulary (collocational knowledge produces the best discriminant function. In general, narrative intelligence was found to be the most reliable predictor for membership in low or high groups. It was also found that, among the five sub-abilities of narrative intelligence, emplotment carries the highest classifying value. Finally, the applications and implications of the results for second language researchers, cognitive scientists, and applied linguists were discussed.Â

  2. Multi-Site Diagnostic Classification of Schizophrenia Using Discriminant Deep Learning with Functional Connectivity MRI

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ling-Li Zeng

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Background: A lack of a sufficiently large sample at single sites causes poor generalizability in automatic diagnosis classification of heterogeneous psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia based on brain imaging scans. Advanced deep learning methods may be capable of learning subtle hidden patterns from high dimensional imaging data, overcome potential site-related variation, and achieve reproducible cross-site classification. However, deep learning-based cross-site transfer classification, despite less imaging site-specificity and more generalizability of diagnostic models, has not been investigated in schizophrenia. Methods: A large multi-site functional MRI sample (n = 734, including 357 schizophrenic patients from seven imaging resources was collected, and a deep discriminant autoencoder network, aimed at learning imaging site-shared functional connectivity features, was developed to discriminate schizophrenic individuals from healthy controls. Findings: Accuracies of approximately 85·0% and 81·0% were obtained in multi-site pooling classification and leave-site-out transfer classification, respectively. The learned functional connectivity features revealed dysregulation of the cortical-striatal-cerebellar circuit in schizophrenia, and the most discriminating functional connections were primarily located within and across the default, salience, and control networks. Interpretation: The findings imply that dysfunctional integration of the cortical-striatal-cerebellar circuit across the default, salience, and control networks may play an important role in the “disconnectivity” model underlying the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The proposed discriminant deep learning method may be capable of learning reliable connectome patterns and help in understanding the pathophysiology and achieving accurate prediction of schizophrenia across multiple independent imaging sites. Keywords: Schizophrenia, Deep learning, Connectome, f

  3. Multi-Site Diagnostic Classification of Schizophrenia Using Discriminant Deep Learning with Functional Connectivity MRI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Ling-Li; Wang, Huaning; Hu, Panpan; Yang, Bo; Pu, Weidan; Shen, Hui; Chen, Xingui; Liu, Zhening; Yin, Hong; Tan, Qingrong; Wang, Kai; Hu, Dewen

    2018-04-01

    A lack of a sufficiently large sample at single sites causes poor generalizability in automatic diagnosis classification of heterogeneous psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia based on brain imaging scans. Advanced deep learning methods may be capable of learning subtle hidden patterns from high dimensional imaging data, overcome potential site-related variation, and achieve reproducible cross-site classification. However, deep learning-based cross-site transfer classification, despite less imaging site-specificity and more generalizability of diagnostic models, has not been investigated in schizophrenia. A large multi-site functional MRI sample (n = 734, including 357 schizophrenic patients from seven imaging resources) was collected, and a deep discriminant autoencoder network, aimed at learning imaging site-shared functional connectivity features, was developed to discriminate schizophrenic individuals from healthy controls. Accuracies of approximately 85·0% and 81·0% were obtained in multi-site pooling classification and leave-site-out transfer classification, respectively. The learned functional connectivity features revealed dysregulation of the cortical-striatal-cerebellar circuit in schizophrenia, and the most discriminating functional connections were primarily located within and across the default, salience, and control networks. The findings imply that dysfunctional integration of the cortical-striatal-cerebellar circuit across the default, salience, and control networks may play an important role in the "disconnectivity" model underlying the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The proposed discriminant deep learning method may be capable of learning reliable connectome patterns and help in understanding the pathophysiology and achieving accurate prediction of schizophrenia across multiple independent imaging sites. Copyright © 2018 German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Detection of subclinical keratoconus through non-contact tonometry and the use of discriminant biomechanical functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peña-García, Pablo; Peris-Martínez, Cristina; Abbouda, Alessandro; Ruiz-Moreno, José M

    2016-02-08

    The purpose of the present study was to develop a discriminant function departing from the biomechanical parameters provided by a non-contact tonometer (Corvis-ST, Oculus Optikgeräte, Wetzlar, Germany) to distinguish subclinical keratoconus from normal eyes. 212 eyes (120 patients) were divided in two groups: 184 healthy eyes of 92 patients aged 32.99 ± 7.85 (21-73 years) and 28 eyes of 28 patients aged 37.79 ± 14.21 (17-75 years) with subclinical keratoconus. The main outcome measures were age, sex, intraocular pressure (IOP), corneal central thickness (CCT) and other specific biomechanical parameters provided by the tonometer. Correlations between all biomechanical parameters and the rest of variables were evaluated. The biomechanical measures were corrected in IOP and CCT (since these variable are not directly related with the corneal structure and biomechanical behavior) to warrant an accurate comparison between both types of eyes. Two discriminant functions were created from the set of corrected variables. The best discriminant function created depended on three parameters: maximum Deformation Amplitude (corrected in IOP and CCT), First Applanation time (corrected in CCT) and CCT. Statistically significant differences were found between groups for this function (p=2·10(-10); Mann-Withney test). The area under the Receiving Operating Characteristic was 0.893 ± 0.028 (95% confidence interval 0.838-0.949). Sensitivity and specificity were 85.7% and 82.07% respectively. These results show that the use of biomechanical parameters provided by non-contact tonometry, previous normalization, combined with the theory of discriminant functions is a useful tool for the detection of subclinical keratoconus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Hyperspectral Image Classification Using Discriminative Dictionary Learning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zongze, Y; Hao, S; Kefeng, J; Huanxin, Z

    2014-01-01

    The hyperspectral image (HSI) processing community has witnessed a surge of papers focusing on the utilization of sparse prior for effective HSI classification. In sparse representation based HSI classification, there are two phases: sparse coding with an over-complete dictionary and classification. In this paper, we first apply a novel fisher discriminative dictionary learning method, which capture the relative difference in different classes. The competitive selection strategy ensures that atoms in the resulting over-complete dictionary are the most discriminative. Secondly, motivated by the assumption that spatially adjacent samples are statistically related and even belong to the same materials (same class), we propose a majority voting scheme incorporating contextual information to predict the category label. Experiment results show that the proposed method can effectively strengthen relative discrimination of the constructed dictionary, and incorporating with the majority voting scheme achieve generally an improved prediction performance

  6. Quantifying discrimination of Framingham risk functions with different survival C statistics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pencina, Michael J; D'Agostino, Ralph B; Song, Linye

    2012-07-10

    Cardiovascular risk prediction functions offer an important diagnostic tool for clinicians and patients themselves. They are usually constructed with the use of parametric or semi-parametric survival regression models. It is essential to be able to evaluate the performance of these models, preferably with summaries that offer natural and intuitive interpretations. The concept of discrimination, popular in the logistic regression context, has been extended to survival analysis. However, the extension is not unique. In this paper, we define discrimination in survival analysis as the model's ability to separate those with longer event-free survival from those with shorter event-free survival within some time horizon of interest. This definition remains consistent with that used in logistic regression, in the sense that it assesses how well the model-based predictions match the observed data. Practical and conceptual examples and numerical simulations are employed to examine four C statistics proposed in the literature to evaluate the performance of survival models. We observe that they differ in the numerical values and aspects of discrimination that they capture. We conclude that the index proposed by Harrell is the most appropriate to capture discrimination described by the above definition. We suggest researchers report which C statistic they are using, provide a rationale for their selection, and be aware that comparing different indices across studies may not be meaningful. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  7. Introduction to integral discriminants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Morozov, A.; Shakirov, Sh.

    2009-01-01

    The simplest partition function, associated with homogeneous symmetric forms S of degree r in n variables, is integral discriminant J n|r (S) = ∫e -S(x 1 ,...,x n ) dx 1 ...dx n . Actually, S-dependence remains the same if e -S in the integrand is substituted by arbitrary function f(S), i.e. integral discriminant is a characteristic of the form S itself, and not of the averaging procedure. The aim of the present paper is to calculate J n|r in a number of non-Gaussian cases. Using Ward identities - linear differential equations, satisfied by integral discriminants - we calculate J 2|3 ,J 2|4 ,J 2|5 and J 3|3 . In all these examples, integral discriminant appears to be a generalized hypergeometric function. It depends on several SL(n) invariants of S, with essential singularities controlled by the ordinary algebraic discriminant of S.

  8. Trained Musical Performers' and Musically Untrained College Students' Ability to Discriminate Music Instrument Timbre as a Function of Duration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Dennis Alan

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of trained musicians and musically untrained college students to discriminate music instrument timbre as a function of duration. Specific factors investigated were the thresholds for timbre discrimination as a function of duration, musical ensemble participation as training, and the relative discrimination abilities of vocalists and instrumentalists. The subjects (N = 126) were volunteer college students from intact classes from various disciplines separated into musically untrained college students (N = 43) who had not participated in musical ensembles and trained musicians (N = 83) who had. The musicians were further divided into instrumentalists (N = 51) and vocalists (N = 32). The Method of Constant Stimuli, using a same-different response procedure with 120 randomized, counterbalanced timbre pairs comprised of trumpet, clarinet, or violin, presented in durations of 20 to 100 milliseconds in a sequence of pitches, in two blocks was used for data collection. Complete, complex musical timbres were recorded digitally and presented in a sequence of changing pitches to more closely approximate an actual music listening experience. Under the conditions of this study, it can be concluded that the threshold for timbre discrimination as a function of duration is at or below 20 ms. Even though trained musicians tended to discriminate timbre better than musically untrained college students, musicians cannot discriminate timbre significantly better then those subjects who have not participated in musical ensembles. Additionally, instrumentalists tended to discriminate timbre better than vocalists, but the discrimination is not significantly different. Recommendations for further research include suggestions for a timbre discrimination measurement tool that takes into consideration the multidimensionality of timbre and the relationship of timbre discrimination to timbre source, duration, pitch, and loudness.

  9. Sex assessment from carpals bones: discriminant function analysis in a contemporary Mexican sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mastrangelo, Paola; De Luca, Stefano; Sánchez-Mejorada, Gabriela

    2011-06-15

    Sex assessment is one of the first essential steps in human identification, in both medico-legal cases and bio-archaeological contexts. Fragmentary human remains compromised by different types of burial or physical insults may frustrate the use of the traditional sex estimation methods, such as the analysis of the skull and pelvis. Currently, the application of discriminant functions to sex unidentified skeletal remains is steadily increasing. However, several studies have demonstrated that, due to variation in size and patterns of sexual dimorphism, discriminant functions are population-specific. In this study, in order to improve sex assessment from skeletal remains and to establish population-specific discriminant functions, the diagnostic values of the carpal bones were considered. A sample of 136 individuals (78 males, 58 females) of known sex and age was analyzed. They belong to a contemporary identified collection from the Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City). The age of the individuals ranged between 25 and 85 years. Between four and nine measurements of each carpal bone were taken. Independent t-tests confirm that all carpals are sexually dimorphic. Univariate measurements produce accuracy levels that range from 61.8% to 90.8%. Classification accuracies ranged between 81.3% and 92.3% in the multivariate stepwise discriminant analysis. In addition, intra- and inter-observer error tests were performed. These indicated that replication of measurements was satisfactory for the same observer over time and between observers. These results suggest that carpal bones can be used for assessing sex in both forensic and bio-archaeological identification procedures and that bone dimensions are population specific. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Polyester textile functionalization through incorporation of pH/thermo-responsive microgels. Part II: polyester functionalization and characterization

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Glampedaki, P.; Calvimontes, A.; Dutschk, Victoria; Warmoeskerken, Marinus

    2012-01-01

    A new approach to functionalize the surface of polyester textiles is described in this study. Functionalization was achieved by incorporating pH/temperature-responsive polyelectrolyte microgels into the textile surface layer using UV irradiation. The aim of functionalization was to regulate

  11. The interaction between hippocampal GABA-B and cannabinoid receptors upon spatial change and object novelty discrimination memory function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nasehi, Mohammad; Alaghmandan-Motlagh, Niyousha; Ebrahimi-Ghiri, Mohaddeseh; Nami, Mohammad; Zarrindast, Mohammad-Reza

    2017-10-01

    Previous studies have postulated functional links between GABA and cannabinoid systems in the hippocampus. The aim of the present study was to investigate any possible interaction between these systems in spatial change and object novelty discrimination memory consolidation in the dorsal hippocampus (CA1 region) of NMRI mice. Assessment of the spatial change and object novelty discrimination memory function was carried out in a non-associative task. The experiment comprised mice exposure to an open field containing five objects followed by the examination of their reactivity to object displacement (spatial change) and object substitution (object novelty) after three sessions of habituation. Our results showed that the post-training intraperitoneal administration of the higher dose of ACPA (0.02 mg/kg) impaired both spatial change and novelty discrimination memory functions. Meanwhile, the higher dose of GABA-B receptor agonist, baclofen, impaired the spatial change memory by itself. Moreover, the post-training intra-CA1 microinjection of a subthreshold dose of baclofen increased the ACPA effect on spatial change and novelty discrimination memory at a lower and higher dose, respectively. On the other hand, the lower and higher but not mid-level doses of GABA-B receptor antagonist, phaclofen, could reverse memory deficits induced by ACPA. However, phaclofen at its mid-level dose impaired the novelty discrimination memory and whereas the higher dose impaired the spatial change memory. Based on our findings, GABA-B receptors in the CA1 region appear to modulate the ACPA-induced cannabinoid CB1 signaling upon spatial change and novelty discrimination memory functions.

  12. A new potentiometric electrode incorporating functionalized β-cyclodextrins for diclofenac determination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenik, Joanna

    2014-12-01

    This paper reports the preparation of diclofenac-selective membrane electrodes incorporating β-cyclodextrins: (2-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin, heptakis(2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin, and heptakis(2,3,6-tri-O-benzoyl)-β-cyclodextrin. Several plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) membranes of different compositions were tested with the best electrode being the one incorporating heptakis(2,3,6-tri-O-benzoyl)-β-cyclodextrin with the membrane plasticized with 2-nitrophenyloctyl ether. The electrode is characterized by a near-Nernstian response slope of -60.0 mV decade(-1) over the linear range of 5.0×10(-5)-1.0×10(-2) mol L(-1) and a limit of detection of 1.4×10(-5) mol L(-1). The proposed electrode can easily discriminate diclofenac ions from several inorganic and organic interferents and some common drug excipients. The electrode has a response time of 10s and can be used within a pH range of 6.2-8.5 over 10 months without any considerable deterioration. The electrical properties of the membrane electrode were studied by impedance spectroscopy. The notable advantages of the diclofenac-selective electrode include its high sensitivity, selectivity, cost-effectiveness, and comfortable application in drug and urine analysis. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Within centre evaluation of hypercalcaemia discriminant

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Bo Friis; Conradsen, Knut

    1996-01-01

    Diagnostic hypercalcaemia discriminant functions, discriminating between clinically significant and non-significant hypercalcaemia, were tested 5 years after their development in order to evaluate the impact of time on their diagnostic capacity. Two populations, consisting of 257 and 129 patients......). The discriminant functions correctly classified 81 and 80% of the women, respectively (NS) and respectively 75% and 64% of the men (NS) in the first and second recorded populations.......Diagnostic hypercalcaemia discriminant functions, discriminating between clinically significant and non-significant hypercalcaemia, were tested 5 years after their development in order to evaluate the impact of time on their diagnostic capacity. Two populations, consisting of 257 and 129 patients...

  14. Do mental skills make champions? Examining the discriminant function of the psychological characteristics of developing excellence questionnaire.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macnamara, Aine; Collins, Dave

    2013-01-01

    The ability to successfully develop to the highest levels in sport is dependent on a range of variables, not least an individual's ability to cope with the various challenges of development. Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence (PCDEs) include both the trait characteristics and the state-deployed skills that have been shown to play a crucial role in the realisation of potential. Psychological characteristics of developing excellence equip aspiring elites with the mental skills, attitudes, and emotions to cope with the challenges of the development pathway, as well as underpinning their capacity to make the most of their innate abilities. The Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire (PCDEQ) was designed to assess the possession and deployment of these characteristics. The purpose of this paper was to examine the ability of the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire to effectively discriminate between good and poor developers based on their current possession and deployment of psychological characteristics of developing excellence. Two hundred and eighty-five athletes (n = 192 team athletes; n = 93 individual athletes) completed the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire. Results from the discriminant function analysis suggest that the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire correctly classifies between 67% and 75% of athletes based on their responses. The Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire can be used as a formative assessment tool to direct training programmes by identifying weaknesses in psychological characteristics of developing excellence and incorporating specific training to address these weaknesses in advance of developmental challenges.

  15. Is the 'Trondsen Discriminant Function' useful in patients referred for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ainsworth, A P; Pless, T; Mortensen, M B

    2003-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Ideally, patients should only be referred to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) if therapy is indicated. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether or not the 'Trondsen Discriminant Function' (DF) could be used for selecting patients directly for ERCP. METHODS...

  16. Is the 'Trondsen Discriminant Function' useful in patients referred for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ainsworth, A P; Pless, T; Mortensen, M B

    2003-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Ideally, patients should only be referred to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) if therapy is indicated. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether or not the 'Trondsen Discriminant Function' (DF) could be used for selecting patients directly for ERCP. METHODS: T...

  17. The pigeon's discrimination of visual entropy: a logarithmic function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Michael E; Wasserman, Edward A

    2002-11-01

    We taught 8 pigeons to discriminate 16-icon arrays that differed in their visual variability or "entropy" to see whether the relationship between entropy and discriminative behavior is linear (in which equivalent differences in entropy should produce equivalent changes in behavior) or logarithmic (in which higher entropy values should be less discriminable from one another than lower entropy values). Pigeons received a go/no-go task in which the lower entropy arrays were reinforced for one group and the higher entropy arrays were reinforced for a second group. The superior discrimination of the second group was predicted by a theoretical analysis in which excitatory and inhibitory stimulus generalization gradients fall along a logarithmic, but not a linear scale. Reanalysis of previously published data also yielded results consistent with a logarithmic relationship between entropy and discriminative behavior.

  18. Speech discrimination difficulties in High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder are likely independent of auditory hypersensitivity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    William Andrew Dunlop

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, characterised by impaired communication skills and repetitive behaviours, can also result in differences in sensory perception. Individuals with ASD often perform normally in simple auditory tasks but poorly compared to typically developed (TD individuals on complex auditory tasks like discriminating speech from complex background noise. A common trait of individuals with ASD is hypersensitivity to auditory stimulation. No studies to our knowledge consider whether hypersensitivity to sounds is related to differences in speech-in-noise discrimination. We provide novel evidence that individuals with high-functioning ASD show poor performance compared to TD individuals in a speech-in-noise discrimination task with an attentionally demanding background noise, but not in a purely energetic noise. Further, we demonstrate in our small sample that speech-hypersensitivity does not appear to predict performance in the speech-in-noise task. The findings support the argument that an attentional deficit, rather than a perceptual deficit, affects the ability of individuals with ASD to discriminate speech from background noise. Finally, we piloted a novel questionnaire that measures difficulty hearing in noisy environments, and sensitivity to non-verbal and verbal sounds. Psychometric analysis using 128 TD participants provided novel evidence for a difference in sensitivity to non-verbal and verbal sounds, and these findings were reinforced by participants with ASD who also completed the questionnaire. The study was limited by a small and high-functioning sample of participants with ASD. Future work could test larger sample sizes and include lower-functioning ASD participants.

  19. Discriminative Transfer Learning for General Image Restoration

    KAUST Repository

    Xiao, Lei; Heide, Felix; Heidrich, Wolfgang; Schö lkopf, Bernhard; Hirsch, Michael

    2018-01-01

    Recently, several discriminative learning approaches have been proposed for effective image restoration, achieving convincing trade-off between image quality and computational efficiency. However, these methods require separate training for each restoration task (e.g., denoising, deblurring, demosaicing) and problem condition (e.g., noise level of input images). This makes it time-consuming and difficult to encompass all tasks and conditions during training. In this paper, we propose a discriminative transfer learning method that incorporates formal proximal optimization and discriminative learning for general image restoration. The method requires a single-pass discriminative training and allows for reuse across various problems and conditions while achieving an efficiency comparable to previous discriminative approaches. Furthermore, after being trained, our model can be easily transferred to new likelihood terms to solve untrained tasks, or be combined with existing priors to further improve image restoration quality.

  20. Discriminative Transfer Learning for General Image Restoration

    KAUST Repository

    Xiao, Lei

    2018-04-30

    Recently, several discriminative learning approaches have been proposed for effective image restoration, achieving convincing trade-off between image quality and computational efficiency. However, these methods require separate training for each restoration task (e.g., denoising, deblurring, demosaicing) and problem condition (e.g., noise level of input images). This makes it time-consuming and difficult to encompass all tasks and conditions during training. In this paper, we propose a discriminative transfer learning method that incorporates formal proximal optimization and discriminative learning for general image restoration. The method requires a single-pass discriminative training and allows for reuse across various problems and conditions while achieving an efficiency comparable to previous discriminative approaches. Furthermore, after being trained, our model can be easily transferred to new likelihood terms to solve untrained tasks, or be combined with existing priors to further improve image restoration quality.

  1. Functional discriminant method and neuronal net

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Minh-Quan Tran.

    1993-02-01

    The ZEUS detector at the ep storage ring HERA at DESY is equipped with a 3 level trigger system. This enormous effort is necessary to fight against the high proton beamgas background that was estimated to be at the level of 100 kHz. In this thesis two methods were investigated to calculate a trigger decision from a set of various trigger parameters. The Functional Discriminant Analysis evalutes a decision parameter that is optimized by means of a linear algebra technic. A method is shown how to determine the most important trigger parameters. A 'feed forward' neuralnetwork was analyzed in order to allow none lineare cuts in the n dimensinal configuration space spanned by the trigger parameters. The error back propagation method was used to teach the neural network. It is shown that both decision methods are able to abstract the important characteristics of event samples. As soon as they are tought they will seperate events from these classes even though they were not part of the training sample. (orig.) [de

  2. Robust Visual Tracking via Online Discriminative and Low-Rank Dictionary Learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Tao; Liu, Fanghui; Bhaskar, Harish; Yang, Jie

    2017-09-12

    In this paper, we propose a novel and robust tracking framework based on online discriminative and low-rank dictionary learning. The primary aim of this paper is to obtain compact and low-rank dictionaries that can provide good discriminative representations of both target and background. We accomplish this by exploiting the recovery ability of low-rank matrices. That is if we assume that the data from the same class are linearly correlated, then the corresponding basis vectors learned from the training set of each class shall render the dictionary to become approximately low-rank. The proposed dictionary learning technique incorporates a reconstruction error that improves the reliability of classification. Also, a multiconstraint objective function is designed to enable active learning of a discriminative and robust dictionary. Further, an optimal solution is obtained by iteratively computing the dictionary, coefficients, and by simultaneously learning the classifier parameters. Finally, a simple yet effective likelihood function is implemented to estimate the optimal state of the target during tracking. Moreover, to make the dictionary adaptive to the variations of the target and background during tracking, an online update criterion is employed while learning the new dictionary. Experimental results on a publicly available benchmark dataset have demonstrated that the proposed tracking algorithm performs better than other state-of-the-art trackers.

  3. A Differential Item Functional Analysis by Age of Perceived Interpersonal Discrimination in a Multi-racial/ethnic Sample of Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Owens, Sherry; Kristjansson, Alfgeir L; Hunte, Haslyn E R

    2015-11-05

    We investigated whether individual items on the nine item William's Perceived Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) functioned differently by age (ethnic group. Overall, Asian and Hispanic respondents reported less discrimination than Whites; on the other hand, African Americans and Black Caribbeans reported more discrimination than Whites. Regardless of race/ethnicity, the younger respondents (aged ethnicity, the results were mixed for 19 out of 45 tests of DIF (40%). No differences in item function were observed among Black Caribbeans. "Being called names or insulted" and others acting as "if they are afraid" of the respondents were the only two items that did not exhibit differential item functioning by age across all racial/ethnic groups. Overall, our findings suggest that the EDS scale should be used with caution in multi-age multi-racial/ethnic samples.

  4. Unambiguous discrimination among oracle operators

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chefles, Anthony; Kitagawa, Akira; Takeoka, Masahiro; Sasaki, Masahide; Twamley, Jason

    2007-01-01

    We address the problem of unambiguous discrimination among oracle operators. The general theory of unambiguous discrimination among unitary operators is extended with this application in mind. We prove that entanglement with an ancilla cannot assist any discrimination strategy for commuting unitary operators. We also obtain a simple, practical test for the unambiguous distinguishability of an arbitrary set of unitary operators on a given system. Using this result, we prove that the unambiguous distinguishability criterion is the same for both standard and minimal oracle operators. We then show that, except in certain trivial cases, unambiguous discrimination among all standard oracle operators corresponding to integer functions with fixed domain and range is impossible. However, we find that it is possible to unambiguously discriminate among the Grover oracle operators corresponding to an arbitrarily large unsorted database. The unambiguous distinguishability of standard oracle operators corresponding to totally indistinguishable functions, which possess a strong form of classical indistinguishability, is analysed. We prove that these operators are not unambiguously distinguishable for any finite set of totally indistinguishable functions on a Boolean domain and with arbitrary fixed range. Sets of such functions on a larger domain can have unambiguously distinguishable standard oracle operators, and we provide a complete analysis of the simplest case, that of four functions. We also examine the possibility of unambiguous oracle operator discrimination with multiple parallel calls and investigate an intriguing unitary superoperator transformation between standard and entanglement-assisted minimal oracle operators

  5. Digital voltage discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhou Zhicheng

    1992-01-01

    A digital voltage discriminator is described, which is synthesized by digital comparator and ADC. The threshold is program controllable with high stability. Digital region of confusion is approximately equal to 1.5 LSB. This discriminator has a single channel analyzer function model with channel width of 1.5 LSB

  6. New Region-Scalable Discriminant and Fitting Energy Functional for Driving Geometric Active Contours in Medical Image Segmentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xuchu Wang

    2014-01-01

    that uses region-scalable discriminant and fitting energy functional for handling the intensity inhomogeneity and weak boundary problems in medical image segmentation. The region-scalable discriminant and fitting energy functional is defined to capture the image intensity characteristics in local and global regions for driving the evolution of active contour. The discriminant term in the model aims at separating background and foreground in scalable regions while the fitting term tends to fit the intensity in these regions. This model is then transformed into a variational level set formulation with a level set regularization term for accurate computation. The new model utilizes intensity information in the local and global regions as much as possible; so it not only handles better intensity inhomogeneity, but also allows more robustness to noise and more flexible initialization in comparison to the original global region and regional-scalable based models. Experimental results for synthetic and real medical image segmentation show the advantages of the proposed method in terms of accuracy and robustness.

  7. Acoustic discrimination of Southern Ocean zooplankton

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brierley, Andrew S.; Ward, Peter; Watkins, Jonathan L.; Goss, Catherine

    Acoustic surveys in the vicinity of the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia during a period of exceptionally calm weather revealed the existence of a number of horizontally extensive yet vertically discrete scattering layers in the upper 250 m of the water column. These layers were fished with a Longhurst-Hardy plankton recorder (LHPR) and a multiple-opening 8 m 2 rectangular mid-water trawl (RMT8). Analysis of catches suggested that each scattering layer was composed predominantly of a single species (biovolume>95%) of either the euphausiids Euphausia frigida or Thysanöessa macrura, the hyperiid amphipod Themisto gaudichaudii, or the eucalaniid copepod Rhincalanus gigas. Instrumentation on the nets allowed their trajectories to be reconstructed precisely, and thus catch data to be related directly to the corresponding acoustic signals. Discriminant function analysis of differences between mean volume backscattering strength at 38, 120 and 200 kHz separated echoes originating from each of the dominant scattering layers, and other signals identified as originating from Antarctic krill ( Euphausia superba), with an overall correct classification rate of 77%. Using echo intensity data alone, gathered using hardware commonly employed for fishery acoustics, it is therefore possible to discriminate in situ between several zooplanktonic taxa, taxa which in some instances exhibit similar gross morphological characteristics and have overlapping length- frequency distributions. Acoustic signals from the mysid Antarctomysis maxima could also be discriminated once information on target distribution was considered, highlighting the value of incorporating multiple descriptors of echo characteristics into signal identification procedures. The ability to discriminate acoustically between zooplankton taxa could be applied to provide improved acoustic estimates of species abundance, and to enhance field studies of zooplankton ecology, distribution and species interactions.

  8. Discrimination of schizophrenia auditory hallucinators by machine learning of resting-state functional MRI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chyzhyk, Darya; Graña, Manuel; Öngür, Döst; Shinn, Ann K

    2015-05-01

    Auditory hallucinations (AH) are a symptom that is most often associated with schizophrenia, but patients with other neuropsychiatric conditions, and even a small percentage of healthy individuals, may also experience AH. Elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying AH in schizophrenia may offer insight into the pathophysiology associated with AH more broadly across multiple neuropsychiatric disease conditions. In this paper, we address the problem of classifying schizophrenia patients with and without a history of AH, and healthy control (HC) subjects. To this end, we performed feature extraction from resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) data and applied machine learning classifiers, testing two kinds of neuroimaging features: (a) functional connectivity (FC) measures computed by lattice auto-associative memories (LAAM), and (b) local activity (LA) measures, including regional homogeneity (ReHo) and fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF). We show that it is possible to perform classification within each pair of subject groups with high accuracy. Discrimination between patients with and without lifetime AH was highest, while discrimination between schizophrenia patients and HC participants was worst, suggesting that classification according to the symptom dimension of AH may be more valid than discrimination on the basis of traditional diagnostic categories. FC measures seeded in right Heschl's gyrus (RHG) consistently showed stronger discriminative power than those seeded in left Heschl's gyrus (LHG), a finding that appears to support AH models focusing on right hemisphere abnormalities. The cortical brain localizations derived from the features with strong classification performance are consistent with proposed AH models, and include left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), parahippocampal gyri, the cingulate cortex, as well as several temporal and prefrontal cortical brain regions. Overall, the observed findings suggest that

  9. Learning discriminant face descriptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lei, Zhen; Pietikäinen, Matti; Li, Stan Z

    2014-02-01

    Local feature descriptor is an important module for face recognition and those like Gabor and local binary patterns (LBP) have proven effective face descriptors. Traditionally, the form of such local descriptors is predefined in a handcrafted way. In this paper, we propose a method to learn a discriminant face descriptor (DFD) in a data-driven way. The idea is to learn the most discriminant local features that minimize the difference of the features between images of the same person and maximize that between images from different people. In particular, we propose to enhance the discriminative ability of face representation in three aspects. First, the discriminant image filters are learned. Second, the optimal neighborhood sampling strategy is soft determined. Third, the dominant patterns are statistically constructed. Discriminative learning is incorporated to extract effective and robust features. We further apply the proposed method to the heterogeneous (cross-modality) face recognition problem and learn DFD in a coupled way (coupled DFD or C-DFD) to reduce the gap between features of heterogeneous face images to improve the performance of this challenging problem. Extensive experiments on FERET, CAS-PEAL-R1, LFW, and HFB face databases validate the effectiveness of the proposed DFD learning on both homogeneous and heterogeneous face recognition problems. The DFD improves POEM and LQP by about 4.5 percent on LFW database and the C-DFD enhances the heterogeneous face recognition performance of LBP by over 25 percent.

  10. Community-based comprehensive intervention for people with schizophrenia in Guangzhou, China: Effects on clinical symptoms, social functioning, internalized stigma and discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jie; Huang, Yuan-Guang; Ran, Mao-Sheng; Fan, Yu; Chen, Wen; Evans-Lacko, Sara; Thornicroft, Graham

    2018-04-01

    Comprehensive interventions including components of stigma and discrimination reduction in schizophrenia in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are lacking. We developed a community-based comprehensive intervention to evaluate its effects on clinical symptoms, social functioning, internalized stigma and discrimination among patients with schizophrenia. A randomized controlled trial including an intervention group (n = 169) and a control group (n = 158) was performed. The intervention group received comprehensive intervention (strategies against stigma and discrimination, psycho-education, social skills training and cognitive behavioral therapy) and the control group received face to face interview. Both lasted for nine months. Participants were measured at baseline, 6 months and 9 months using the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale (ISMI), Discrimination and Stigma Scale (DISC-12), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale (SQLS), Self-Esteem Scale (SES), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and PANSS negative scale (PANSS-N). Insight and medication compliance were evaluated by senior psychiatrists. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, chi-square test or Fisher's exact test. Linear Mixed Models were used to show intervention effectiveness on scales. General Linear Mixed Models with multinomial logistic link function were used to assess the effectiveness on medication compliance and insight. We found a significant reduction on anticipated discrimination, BPRS and PANSS-N total scores, and an elevation on overcoming stigma and GAF in the intervention group after 9 months. These suggested the intervention may be effective in reducing anticipated discrimination, increasing skills overcoming stigma as well as improving clinical symptoms and social functioning in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Pavlovian Extinction of the Discriminative Stimulus Effects of Nicotine and Ethanol in Rats Varies as a Function of Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Troisi, Joseph R., II

    2011-01-01

    Operant extinction contingencies can undermine the discriminative stimulus effects of drugs. Here, nicotine (0.4 mg/kg) and ethanol (0.8 g/kg) first functioned as either an S[superscript D] or S[superscript Delta], in a counterbalanced one-lever go/no-go (across sessions) operant drug discrimination procedure. Pavlovian extinction in the training…

  12. Material Discriminated X-Ray CT System by Using New X-Ray Imager with Energy Discriminate Function

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toru Aoki

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Material discriminated X-ray CT system has been constructed by using conventional X-ray tube (white X-ray source and photon-counting X-ray imager as an application with energy band detection. We have already reported material identify X-ray CT using K-shell edge method elsewhere. In this report the principle of material discrimination was adapted the separation of electron-density and atomic number from attenuation coefficient mapping in X-ray CT reconstructed image in two wavelength X-ray CT method using white X-ray source and energy discriminated X-ray imager by using two monochrome X-ray source method. The measurement phantom was prepared as four kinds material rods (Carbon(C, Iron(Fe, Copper(Cu, Titanium(Ti rods of 3mm-diameter inside an aluminum(Al rod of 20mm-diameter. We could observed material discriminated X-ray CT reconstructed image, however, the discrimination properties were not good than two monochrome X-ray CT method. This results was could be explained because X-ray scattering, beam-hardening and so on based on white X-ray source, which could not observe in two monochrome X-ray CT method. However, since our developed CdTe imager can be detect five energy-bands at the same time, we can use multi-band analysis to decrease the least square error margin. We will be able to obtain more high separation in atomic number mapping in X-ray CT reconstructed image by using this system.

  13. A nomogram incorporating six easily obtained parameters to discriminate intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Mengmeng; Gao, Yuzhen; Feng, Huijuan; Warner, Elisa; An, Mingrui; Jia, Jian'an; Chen, Shipeng; Fang, Meng; Ji, Jun; Gu, Xing; Gao, Chunfang

    2018-03-01

    Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are the most prevalent histologic types of primary liver cancer (PLC). Although ICC and HCC share similar risk factors and clinical manifestations, ICC usually bears poorer prognosis than HCC. Confidently discriminating ICC and HCC before surgery is beneficial to both treatment and prognosis. Given the lack of effective differential diagnosis biomarkers and methods, construction of models based on available clinicopathological characteristics is in need. Nomograms present a simple and efficient way to make a discrimination. A total of 2894 patients who underwent surgery for PLC were collected. Of these, 1614 patients formed the training cohort for nomogram construction, and thereafter, 1280 patients formed the validation cohort to confirm the model's performance. Histopathologically confirmed ICC was diagnosed in 401 (24.8%) and 296 (23.1%) patients in these two cohorts, respectively. A nomogram integrating six easily obtained variables (Gender, Hepatitis B surface antigen, Aspartate aminotransferase, Alpha-fetoprotein, Carcinoembryonic antigen, Carbohydrate antigen 19-9) is proposed in accordance with Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC). A score of 15 was determined as the cut-off value, and the corresponding discrimination efficacy was sufficient. Additionally, patients who scored higher than 15 suffered poorer prognosis than those with lower scores, regardless of the subtype of PLC. A nomogram for clinical discrimination of ICC and HCC has been established, where a higher score indicates ICC and poor prognosis. Further application of this nomogram in multicenter investigations may confirm the practicality of this tool for future clinical use. © 2018 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  14. Global action to reduce HIV stigma and discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grossman, Cynthia I; Stangl, Anne L

    2013-01-01

    There is no question that the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS can be reduced through intervention. The inclusion of stigma and discrimination reduction as a critical component of achieving an AIDS-free generation in recent UNAIDS, UN and PEPFAR political initiatives is promising. Yet national governments need evidence on effective interventions at the individual, community and societal levels in order to strategically incorporate stigma and discrimination reduction into national AIDS plans. Currently, the heterogeneity of stigma and discrimination reduction approaches and measurement makes it challenging to compare and contrast evaluated interventions. Moving forward, it is critical for the research community to: (1) clearly link intervention activities to the domains of stigma to be shifted; (2) assess the stigma domains in a consistent manner; and (3) link stigma and discrimination reduction with HIV prevention, care and treatment outcomes (e.g., uptake, adherence and retention of ART). These steps would further advance the scientific evidence base of stigma and discrimination reduction and allow for the identification of effective interventions that could be scaled up by national governments. PMID:24242269

  15. Simulating response functions and pulse shape discrimination for organic scintillation detectors with Geant4

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hartwig, Zachary S., E-mail: hartwig@psfc.mit.edu [Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT, Cambridge MA (United States); Gumplinger, Peter [TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada)

    2014-02-11

    We present new capabilities of the Geant4 toolkit that enable the precision simulation of organic scintillation detectors within a comprehensive Monte Carlo code for the first time. As of version 10.0-beta, the Geant4 toolkit models the data-driven photon production from any user-defined scintillator, photon transportation through arbitrarily complex detector geometries, and time-resolved photon detection at the light readout device. By fully specifying the optical properties and geometrical configuration of the detector, the user can simulate response functions, photon transit times, and pulse shape discrimination. These capabilities enable detector simulation within a larger experimental environment as well as computationally evaluating novel scintillators, detector geometry, and light readout configurations. We demonstrate agreement of Geant4 with the NRESP7 code and with experiments for the spectroscopy of neutrons and gammas in the ranges 0–20 MeV and 0.511–1.274 MeV, respectively, using EJ301-based organic scintillation detectors. We also show agreement between Geant4 and experimental modeling of the particle-dependent detector pulses that enable simulated pulse shape discrimination. -- Highlights: • New capabilities enable the modeling of organic scintillation detectors in Geant4. • Detector modeling of complex scintillators, geometries, and light readout. • Enables particle- and energy-dependent production of scintillation photons. • Provides ability to generate response functions with precise optical physics. • Provides ability to computationally evaluate pulse shape discrimination.

  16. Catalytic properties of RNA polymerases IV and V: accuracy, nucleotide incorporation and rNTP/dNTP discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marasco, Michelle; Li, Weiyi; Lynch, Michael; Pikaard, Craig S

    2017-11-02

    All eukaryotes have three essential nuclear multisubunit RNA polymerases, abbreviated as Pol I, Pol II and Pol III. Plants are remarkable in having two additional multisubunit RNA polymerases, Pol IV and Pol V, which synthesize noncoding RNAs that coordinate RNA-directed DNA methylation for silencing of transposons and a subset of genes. Based on their subunit compositions, Pols IV and V clearly evolved as specialized forms of Pol II, but their catalytic properties remain undefined. Here, we show that Pols IV and V differ from one another, and Pol II, in nucleotide incorporation rate, transcriptional accuracy and the ability to discriminate between ribonucleotides and deoxyribonucleotides. Pol IV transcription is considerably more error-prone than Pols II or V, which may be tolerable in its synthesis of short RNAs that serve as precursors for siRNAs targeting non-identical members of transposon families. By contrast, Pol V exhibits high fidelity transcription, similar to Pol II, suggesting a need for Pol V transcripts to faithfully reflect the DNA sequence of target loci to which siRNA-Argonaute silencing complexes are recruited. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  17. Neuronal discrimination capacity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deng Yingchun; Williams, Peter; Feng Jianfeng; Liu Feng

    2003-01-01

    We explore neuronal mechanisms of discriminating between masked signals. It is found that when the correlation between input signals is zero, the output signals are separable if and only if input signals are separable. With positively (negatively) correlated signals, the output signals are separable (mixed) even when input signals are mixed (separable). Exact values of discrimination capacity are obtained for two most interesting cases: the exactly balanced inhibitory and excitatory input case and the uncorrelated input case. Interestingly, the discrimination capacity obtained in these cases is independent of model parameters, input distribution and is universal. Our results also suggest a functional role of inhibitory inputs and correlated inputs or, more generally, the large variability of efferent spike trains observed in in vivo experiments: the larger the variability of efferent spike trains, the easier it is to discriminate between masked input signals

  18. Neuronal discrimination capacity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Deng Yingchun [Department of Mathematics, Hunan Normal University 410081, Changsha (China); COGS, University of Sussex at Brighton, BN1 9QH (United Kingdom); Williams, Peter; Feng Jianfeng [COGS, University of Sussex at Brighton, BN1 9QH (United Kingdom); Liu Feng [COGS, University of Sussex at Brighton, BN1 9QH (United Kingdom); Physics Department, Nanjing University (China)

    2003-12-19

    We explore neuronal mechanisms of discriminating between masked signals. It is found that when the correlation between input signals is zero, the output signals are separable if and only if input signals are separable. With positively (negatively) correlated signals, the output signals are separable (mixed) even when input signals are mixed (separable). Exact values of discrimination capacity are obtained for two most interesting cases: the exactly balanced inhibitory and excitatory input case and the uncorrelated input case. Interestingly, the discrimination capacity obtained in these cases is independent of model parameters, input distribution and is universal. Our results also suggest a functional role of inhibitory inputs and correlated inputs or, more generally, the large variability of efferent spike trains observed in in vivo experiments: the larger the variability of efferent spike trains, the easier it is to discriminate between masked input signals.

  19. The discriminant validity of alcohol use disorder in well-functioning men with hazardous alcohol use

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Bruijn, H.; Korzec, A.; Arndt, T.; van den Brink, W.

    2003-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to establish the discriminant validity of alcohol use disorder (AUD) diagnoses within a population of well-functioning male heavy drinkers. A group of 57 subjects with a consumption of at least 28 alcoholic units (AU)/week was recruited from wine-tasting clubs. Within

  20. Site-Specific Incorporation of Functional Components into RNA by an Unnatural Base Pair Transcription System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rie Kawai

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Toward the expansion of the genetic alphabet, an unnatural base pair between 7-(2-thienylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (Ds and pyrrole-2-carbaldehyde (Pa functions as a third base pair in replication and transcription, and provides a useful tool for the site-specific, enzymatic incorporation of functional components into nucleic acids. We have synthesized several modified-Pa substrates, such as alkylamino-, biotin-, TAMRA-, FAM-, and digoxigenin-linked PaTPs, and examined their transcription by T7 RNA polymerase using Ds-containing DNA templates with various sequences. The Pa substrates modified with relatively small functional groups, such as alkylamino and biotin, were efficiently incorporated into RNA transcripts at the internal positions, except for those less than 10 bases from the 3′-terminus. We found that the efficient incorporation into a position close to the 3′-terminus of a transcript depended on the natural base contexts neighboring the unnatural base, and that pyrimidine-Ds-pyrimidine sequences in templates were generally favorable, relative to purine-Ds-purine sequences. The unnatural base pair transcription system provides a method for the site-specific functionalization of large RNA molecules.

  1. Separating discriminative and function-altering effects of verbal stimuli

    OpenAIRE

    Schlinger, Henry D.

    1993-01-01

    Ever since Skinner's first discussion of rule-governed behavior, behavior analysts have continued to define rules, either explicitly or implicitly, as verbal discriminative stimuli. Consequently, it is not difficult to find, in the literature on rule-governed behavior, references to stimulus control, antecedent control, or to rules occasioning behavior. However, some verbal stimuli have effects on behavior that are not easily described as discriminative. Such stimuli don't evoke behavior as d...

  2. The neural network involved in a bimanual tactile-tactile matching discrimination task: a functional imaging study at 3 T

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Habas, Christophe; Cabanis, Emmanuel A. [UPMC Paris 6, Service de NeuroImagerie, Hopital des Quinze-Vingts, Paris (France)

    2007-08-15

    The cerebral and cerebellar network involved in a bimanual object recognition was studied in blood oxygenation dependent level functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Nine healthy right-handed volunteers were scanned (1) while performing bilateral finger movements (nondiscrimination motor task), and (2) while performing a bimanual tactile-tactile matching discrimination task using small chess pieces (tactile discrimination task). Extensive activations were specifically observed in the parietal (SII, superior lateral lobule), insular, prefrontal, cingulate and neocerebellar cortices (HVIII), with a left predominance in motor areas, during the tactile discrimination task in contrast to the findings during the nondiscrimination motor task. Bimanual tactile-tactile matching discrimination recruits multiple sensorimotor and associative cerebral and neocerebellar networks (including the cerebellar second homunculus, HVIII), comparable to the neural circuits involved in unimanual tactile object recognition. (orig.)

  3. Editorial: Global action to reduce HIV stigma and discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grossman, Cynthia I; Stangl, Anne L

    2013-11-13

    There is no question that the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS can be reduced through intervention. The inclusion of stigma and discrimination reduction as a critical component of achieving an AIDS-free generation in recent UNAIDS, UN and PEPFAR political initiatives is promising. Yet national governments need evidence on effective interventions at the individual, community and societal levels in order to strategically incorporate stigma and discrimination reduction into national AIDS plans. Currently, the heterogeneity of stigma and discrimination reduction approaches and measurement makes it challenging to compare and contrast evaluated interventions. Moving forward, it is critical for the research community to: (1) clearly link intervention activities to the domains of stigma to be shifted; (2) assess the stigma domains in a consistent manner; and (3) link stigma and discrimination reduction with HIV prevention, care and treatment outcomes (e.g., uptake, adherence and retention of ART). These steps would further advance the scientific evidence base of stigma and discrimination reduction and allow for the identification of effective interventions that could be scaled up by national governments.

  4. Development of probiotic mutandabota, a locally sustainable functional food incorporating Lactobacillus rhamnosus

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mpofu, A.

    2015-01-01

    Development of probiotic mutandabota, a locally sustainable functional food incorporating Lactobacillus rhamnosus

    Mutandabota or umlondo is an indigenous food that is consumed in Southern Africa on a daily basis. The product is made by

  5. Differentiating sex and species of Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) and Clark's Grebes (Aechmophorus clarkii) and their eggs using external morphometrics and discriminant function analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hartman, C. Alex; Ackerman, Joshua T.; Eagles-Smith, Collin A.; Herzog, Mark

    2016-01-01

    In birds where males and females are similar in size and plumage, sex determination by alternative means is necessary. Discriminant function analysis based on external morphometrics was used to distinguish males from females in two closely related species: Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) and Clark's Grebe (A. clarkii). Additionally, discriminant function analysis was used to evaluate morphometric divergence between Western and Clark's grebe adults and eggs. Aechmophorus grebe adults (n = 576) and eggs (n = 130) were sampled across 29 lakes and reservoirs throughout California, USA, and adult sex was determined using molecular analysis. Both Western and Clark's grebes exhibited considerable sexual size dimorphism. Males averaged 6–26% larger than females among seven morphological measurements, with the greatest sexual size dimorphism occurring for bill morphometrics. Discriminant functions based on bill length, bill depth, and short tarsus length correctly assigned sex to 98% of Western Grebes, and a function based on bill length and bill depth correctly assigned sex to 99% of Clark's Grebes. Further, a simplified discriminant function based only on bill depth correctly assigned sex to 96% of Western Grebes and 98% of Clark's Grebes. In contrast, external morphometrics were not suitable for differentiating between Western and Clark's grebe adults or their eggs, with correct classification rates of discriminant functions of only 60%, 63%, and 61% for adult males, adult females, and eggs, respectively. Our results indicate little divergence in external morphology between species of Aechmophorus grebes, and instead separation is much greater between males and females.

  6. Development of vicarious trial-and-error behavior in odor discrimination learning in the rat: relation to hippocampal function?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, D; Griesbach, G; Amsel, A

    1997-06-01

    Previous work from our laboratory has suggested that hippocampal electrolytic lesions result in a deficit in simultaneous, black-white discrimination learning and reduce the frequency of vicarious trial-and-error (VTE) at a choice-point. VTE is a term Tolman used to describe the rat's conflict-like behavior, moving its head from one stimulus to the other at a choice point, and has been proposed as a major nonspatial feature of hippocampal function in both visual and olfactory discrimination learning. Simultaneous odor discrimination and VTE behavior were examined at three different ages. The results were that 16-day-old pups made fewer VTEs and learned much more slowly than 30- and 60-day-olds, a finding in accord with levels of hippocampal maturity in the rat.

  7. Dimensional feature weighting utilizing multiple kernel learning for single-channel talker location discrimination using the acoustic transfer function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takashima, Ryoichi; Takiguchi, Tetsuya; Ariki, Yasuo

    2013-02-01

    This paper presents a method for discriminating the location of the sound source (talker) using only a single microphone. In a previous work, the single-channel approach for discriminating the location of the sound source was discussed, where the acoustic transfer function from a user's position is estimated by using a hidden Markov model of clean speech in the cepstral domain. In this paper, each cepstral dimension of the acoustic transfer function is newly weighted, in order to obtain the cepstral dimensions having information that is useful for classifying the user's position. Then, this paper proposes a feature-weighting method for the cepstral parameter using multiple kernel learning, defining the base kernels for each cepstral dimension of the acoustic transfer function. The user's position is trained and classified by support vector machine. The effectiveness of this method has been confirmed by sound source (talker) localization experiments performed in different room environments.

  8. Fabrication of Functionalized MOFs Incorporated Mixed Matrix Hollow Fiber Membrane for Gas Separation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haitao Zhu

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The metal-organic framework (MOFs of MIL-53 was functionalized by aminosilane grafting and then incorporated into Ultem®1000 polymer matrix to fabricate mixed matrix hollow fiber membrane (MMHFM with high separation performance. SEM, XRD, and TGA were performed to characterize the functionalized MIL-53 and prepared MMHFM. The filler particles were embedded in membrane successfully and dispersed well in the polymer matrix. The incorporation of MOFs endowed MMHFM better thermal stability. Moreover, effects of solvent ratio in spinning dope, spinning condition, and testing temperature on gas separation performance of MMHFM were investigated. By optimizing dope composition, air gap distance, and bore fluid composition, MMHFM containing functionalized MIL-53 achieved excellent gas permeance and CO2/N2 selectivity. The CO2 permeance increased from 12.2 GPU for pure Ultem HFM to 30.9 GPU and the ideal CO2/N2 selectivity was enhanced from 25.4 to 34.7 simultaneously. Additionally, gas permeance increased but the selectivity decreased with the temperature increase, which followed the solution-diffusion based transport mechanism.

  9. Reduced autobiographical memory specificity is associated with impaired discrimination learning in anxiety disorder patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenaert, Bert; Boddez, Yannick; Vervliet, Bram; Schruers, Koen; Hermans, Dirk

    2015-01-01

    Associative learning plays an important role in the development of anxiety disorders, but a thorough understanding of the variables that impact such learning is still lacking. We investigated whether individual differences in autobiographical memory specificity are related to discrimination learning and generalization. In an associative learning task, participants learned the association between two pictures of female faces and a non-aversive outcome. Subsequently, six morphed pictures functioning as generalization stimuli (GSs) were introduced. In a sample of healthy participants (Study 1), we did not find evidence for differences in discrimination learning as a function of memory specificity. In a sample of anxiety disorder patients (Study 2), individuals who were characterized by low memory specificity showed deficient discrimination learning relative to high specific individuals. In contrast to previous findings, results revealed no effect of memory specificity on generalization. These results indicate that impaired discrimination learning, previously shown in patients suffering from an anxiety disorder, may be—in part—due to limited memory specificity. Together, these studies emphasize the importance of incorporating cognitive variables in associative learning theories and their implications for the development of anxiety disorders. In addition, re-analyses of the data (Study 3) showed that patients suffering from panic disorder showed higher outcome expectancies in the presence of the stimulus that was never followed by an outcome during discrimination training, relative to patients suffering from other anxiety disorders and healthy participants. Because we used a neutral, non-aversive outcome (i.e., drawing of a lightning bolt), these data suggest that learning abnormalities in panic disorder may not be restricted to fear learning, but rather reflect a more general associative learning deficit that also manifests in fear irrelevant contexts. PMID

  10. Sex determination using discriminant function analysis in Indigenous (Kurubas children and adolescents of Coorg, Karnataka, India: A lateral cephalometric study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Darshan Devang Divakar

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Aim: To test the validity of sex discrimination using lateral cephalometric radiograph and discriminant function analysis in Indigenous (Kuruba children and adolescents of Coorg, Karnataka, India. Methods and materials: Six hundred and sixteen lateral cephalograms of 380 male and 236 females of age ranging from 6.5 to 18 years of Indigenous population of Coorg, Karnataka, India called Kurubas having a normal occlusion were included in the study. Lateral cephalograms were obtained in a standard position with teeth in centric occlusion and lips relaxed. Each radiograph was traced and cephalometric landmarks were measured using digital calliper. Calculations of 24 cephalometric measurements were performed. Results: Males exhibited significantly greater mean angular and linear cephalometric measurements as compared to females (p < 0.05 (Table 5. Also, significant differences (p < 0.05 were observed in all the variables according to age (Table 6. Out of 24 variables, only ULTc predicts the gender. The reliability of the derived discriminant function was assessed among study subjects; 100% of males and females were recognized correctly. Conclusion: The final outcome of this study validates the existence of sexual dimorphism in the skeleton as early as 6.5 years of age. There is a need for further research to determine other landmarks that can help in sex determination and norms for Indigenous (Kuruba population and also other Indigenous population of Coorg, Karnataka, India. Keywords: Discriminant function analysis, Forensic investigation, Indigenous, Lateral cephalograms, Sex determination

  11. Developing safety performance functions incorporating reliability-based risk measures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Shewkar El-Bassiouni; Sayed, Tarek

    2011-11-01

    Current geometric design guides provide deterministic standards where the safety margin of the design output is generally unknown and there is little knowledge of the safety implications of deviating from these standards. Several studies have advocated probabilistic geometric design where reliability analysis can be used to account for the uncertainty in the design parameters and to provide a risk measure of the implication of deviation from design standards. However, there is currently no link between measures of design reliability and the quantification of safety using collision frequency. The analysis presented in this paper attempts to bridge this gap by incorporating a reliability-based quantitative risk measure such as the probability of non-compliance (P(nc)) in safety performance functions (SPFs). Establishing this link will allow admitting reliability-based design into traditional benefit-cost analysis and should lead to a wider application of the reliability technique in road design. The present application is concerned with the design of horizontal curves, where the limit state function is defined in terms of the available (supply) and stopping (demand) sight distances. A comprehensive collision and geometric design database of two-lane rural highways is used to investigate the effect of the probability of non-compliance on safety. The reliability analysis was carried out using the First Order Reliability Method (FORM). Two Negative Binomial (NB) SPFs were developed to compare models with and without the reliability-based risk measures. It was found that models incorporating the P(nc) provided a better fit to the data set than the traditional (without risk) NB SPFs for total, injury and fatality (I+F) and property damage only (PDO) collisions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Novel discrimination parameters for neutron-gamma discrimination with liquid scintillation detectors using wavelet transform

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Singh, H.; Singh, S.

    2015-01-01

    It has been observed that the discrimination performance of the wavelet transform method strongly depends on definition of discrimination parameters. These parameters are usually obtained from a combination of scaling functions at different scales, which represents the energy density of the wavelet coefficients. In this paper, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) at minimum possible values of scale was investigated. Novel pulse shape discrimination parameters have been proposed for neutron and gamma discrimination in a mixed radiation field and tested with modeled pulses. The performance of these parameters was also validated in terms of quality of discrimination using experimental data of mixed events from an AmBe source collected with BC501 liquid scintillation detector. The quality of discrimination was evaluated by calculating a figure of merit (FOM) with all parameters under same experimental and simulation conditions. The FOM obtained with the proposed novel parameters was also compared with the charge comparison method. The proposed parameters exhibit better FOM as compared to the charge comparison method when high levels of noise are present in the data

  13. Improvement of CPU time of Linear Discriminant Function based on MNM criterion by IP

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuichi Shinmura

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Revised IP-OLDF (optimal linear discriminant function by integer programming is a linear discriminant function to minimize the number of misclassifications (NM of training samples by integer programming (IP. However, IP requires large computation (CPU time. In this paper, it is proposed how to reduce CPU time by using linear programming (LP. In the first phase, Revised LP-OLDF is applied to all cases, and all cases are categorized into two groups: those that are classified correctly or those that are not classified by support vectors (SVs. In the second phase, Revised IP-OLDF is applied to the misclassified cases by SVs. This method is called Revised IPLP-OLDF.In this research, it is evaluated whether NM of Revised IPLP-OLDF is good estimate of the minimum number of misclassifications (MNM by Revised IP-OLDF. Four kinds of the real data—Iris data, Swiss bank note data, student data, and CPD data—are used as training samples. Four kinds of 20,000 re-sampling cases generated from these data are used as the evaluation samples. There are a total of 149 models of all combinations of independent variables by these data. NMs and CPU times of the 149 models are compared with Revised IPLP-OLDF and Revised IP-OLDF. The following results are obtained: 1 Revised IPLP-OLDF significantly improves CPU time. 2 In the case of training samples, all 149 NMs of Revised IPLP-OLDF are equal to the MNM of Revised IP-OLDF. 3 In the case of evaluation samples, most NMs of Revised IPLP-OLDF are equal to NM of Revised IP-OLDF. 4 Generalization abilities of both discriminant functions are concluded to be high, because the difference between the error rates of training and evaluation samples are almost within 2%.   Therefore, Revised IPLP-OLDF is recommended for the analysis of big data instead of Revised IP-OLDF. Next, Revised IPLP-OLDF is compared with LDF and logistic regression by 100-fold cross validation using 100 re-sampling samples. Means of error rates of

  14. Modeling of oxygen incorporation in Th, ThC, and ThN by density functional theory calculations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérez Daroca, D.; Llois, A. M.; Mosca, H. O.

    2017-12-01

    Oxygen incorporation in nuclear fuel materials is an important issue deserving investigation due to its influence on thermophysical and structural properties. Even if there has been a renewed interest in thorium and thorium compounds in the last years, there is still not much research done on this topic. In this work, we study, by means of density functional theory calculations, the incorporation of oxygen in Th, ThC, and ThN. We analyze the electronic structure finding a characteristic peak to be attributed to oxygen incorporation. We also calculate incorporation and solution energies and obtain migration energies of oxygen through different paths finding that migration through vacancy sites is more energetically favorable than through interstitial ones.

  15. Shifts in color discrimination during early pregnancy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orbán, Levente L; Dastur, Farhad N

    2012-05-25

    The present study explores two hypotheses: a) women during early pregnancy should experience increased color discrimination ability, and b) women during early pregnancy should experience shifts in subjective preference away from images of foods that appear either unripe or spoiled. Both of these hypotheses derive from an adaptive view of pregnancy sickness that proposes the function of pregnancy sickness is to decrease the likelihood of ingestion of foods with toxins or teratogens. Changes to color discrimination could be part of a network of perceptual and physiological defenses (e.g., changes to olfaction, nausea, vomiting) that support such a function. Participants included 13 pregnant women and 18 non-pregnant women. Pregnant women scored significantly higher than non-pregnant controls on the Farnsworth-Munsell (FM) 100 Hue Test, an objective test of color discrimination, although no difference was found between groups in preferences for food images at different stages of ripeness or spoilage. These results are the first indication that changes to color discrimination may occur during early pregnancy, and is consistent with the view that pregnancy sickness may function as an adaptive defense mechanism.

  16. Electrodeposition of zinc–silica composite coatings: challenges in incorporating functionalized silica particles into a zinc matrix

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tabrisur Rahman Khan, Andreas Erbe, Michael Auinger, Frank Marlow and Michael Rohwerder

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Zinc is a well-known sacrificial coating material for iron and co-deposition of suitable particles is of interest for further improving its corrosion protection performance. However, incorporation of particles that are well dispersible in aqueous electrolytes, such as silica particles, is extremely difficult. Here, we report a detailed study of Zn–SiO2 nanocomposite coatings deposited from a zinc sulfate solution at pH 3. The effect of functionalization of the silica particles on the electro-codeposition was investigated. The best incorporation was achieved for particles modified with SiO2–SH, dithiooxamide or cysteamine; these particles have functional groups that can strongly interact with zinc and therefore incorporate well into the metal matrix. Other modifications (SiO2–NH3+, SiO2–Cl and N,N-dimethyldodecylamine of the silica particles lead to adsorption and entrapment only.

  17. Face adaptation improves gender discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Hua; Shen, Jianhong; Chen, Juan; Fang, Fang

    2011-01-01

    Adaptation to a visual pattern can alter the sensitivities of neuronal populations encoding the pattern. However, the functional roles of adaptation, especially in high-level vision, are still equivocal. In the present study, we performed three experiments to investigate if face gender adaptation could affect gender discrimination. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that adapting to a male/female face could selectively enhance discrimination for male/female faces. Experiment 3 showed that the discrimination enhancement induced by face adaptation could transfer across a substantial change in three-dimensional face viewpoint. These results provide further evidence suggesting that, similar to low-level vision, adaptation in high-level vision could calibrate the visual system to current inputs of complex shapes (i.e. face) and improve discrimination at the adapted characteristic. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Psilocybin modulates functional connectivity of the amygdala during emotional face discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grimm, O; Kraehenmann, R; Preller, K H; Seifritz, E; Vollenweider, F X

    2018-04-24

    Recent studies suggest that the antidepressant effects of the psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonist psilocybin are mediated through its modulatory properties on prefrontal and limbic brain regions including the amygdala. To further investigate the effects of psilocybin on emotion processing networks, we studied for the first-time psilocybin's acute effects on amygdala seed-to-voxel connectivity in an event-related face discrimination task in 18 healthy volunteers who received psilocybin and placebo in a double-blind balanced cross-over design. The amygdala has been implicated as a salience detector especially involved in the immediate response to emotional face content. We used beta-series amygdala seed-to-voxel connectivity during an emotional face discrimination task to elucidate the connectivity pattern of the amygdala over the entire brain. When we compared psilocybin to placebo, an increase in reaction time for all three categories of affective stimuli was found. Psilocybin decreased the connectivity between amygdala and the striatum during angry face discrimination. During happy face discrimination, the connectivity between the amygdala and the frontal pole was decreased. No effect was seen during discrimination of fearful faces. Thus, we show psilocybin's effect as a modulator of major connectivity hubs of the amygdala. Psilocybin decreases the connectivity between important nodes linked to emotion processing like the frontal pole or the striatum. Future studies are needed to clarify whether connectivity changes predict therapeutic effects in psychiatric patients. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

  19. The 95% confidence intervals of error rates and discriminant coefficients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuichi Shinmura

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Fisher proposed a linear discriminant function (Fisher’s LDF. From 1971, we analysed electrocardiogram (ECG data in order to develop the diagnostic logic between normal and abnormal symptoms by Fisher’s LDF and a quadratic discriminant function (QDF. Our four years research was inferior to the decision tree logic developed by the medical doctor. After this experience, we discriminated many data and found four problems of the discriminant analysis. A revised Optimal LDF by Integer Programming (Revised IP-OLDF based on the minimum number of misclassification (minimum NM criterion resolves three problems entirely [13, 18]. In this research, we discuss fourth problem of the discriminant analysis. There are no standard errors (SEs of the error rate and discriminant coefficient. We propose a k-fold crossvalidation method. This method offers a model selection technique and a 95% confidence intervals (C.I. of error rates and discriminant coefficients.

  20. Shifts in Color Discrimination during Early Pregnancy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Levente L. Orbán

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available The present study explores two hypotheses: a women during early pregnancy should experience increased color discrimination ability, and b women during early pregnancy should experience shifts in subjective preference away from images of foods that appear either unripe or spoiled. Both of these hypotheses derive from an adaptive view of pregnancy sickness that proposes the function of pregnancy sickness is to decrease the likelihood of ingestion of foods with toxins or teratogens. Changes to color discrimination could be part of a network of perceptual and physiological defenses (e.g., changes to olfaction, nausea, vomiting that support such a function. Participants included 13 pregnant women and 18 non-pregnant women. Pregnant women scored significantly higher than non-pregnant controls on the Farnsworth-Munsell (FM 100 Hue Test, an objective test of color discrimination, although no difference was found between groups in preferences for food images at different stages of ripeness or spoilage. These results are the first indication that changes to color discrimination may occur during early pregnancy, and is consistent with the view that pregnancy sickness may function as an adaptive defense mechanism.

  1. Does cognitive performance map to categorical diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder? A discriminant functions analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Rheenen, Tamsyn E; Bryce, Shayden; Tan, Eric J; Neill, Erica; Gurvich, Caroline; Louise, Stephanie; Rossell, Susan L

    2016-03-01

    Despite known overlaps in the pattern of cognitive impairments in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia (SZ) and schizoaffective disorder (SZA), few studies have examined the extent to which cognitive performance validates traditional diagnostic boundaries in these groups. Individuals with SZ (n=49), schizoaffective disorder (n=33) and BD (n=35) completed a battery of cognitive tests measuring the domains of processing speed, immediate memory, semantic memory, learning, working memory, executive function and sustained attention. A discriminant functions analysis revealed a significant function comprising semantic memory, immediate memory and processing speed that maximally separated patients with SZ from those with BD. Initial classification scores on the basis of this function showed modest diagnostic accuracy, owing in part to the misclassification of SZA patients as having SZ. When SZA patients were removed from the model, a second cross-validated classifier yielded slightly improved diagnostic accuracy and a single function solution, of which semantic memory loaded most heavily. A cluster of non-executive cognitive processes appears to have some validity in mapping onto traditional nosological boundaries. However, since semantic memory performance was the primary driver of the discrimination between BD and SZ, it is possible that performance differences between the disorders in this cognitive domain in particular, index separate underlying aetiologies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Effects of Incorporation of Jackfruit Rind Powder on Chemical and Functional Properties of Bread.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Felli, Reza; Yang, Tajul Aris; Abdullah, Wan Nadiah Wan; Zzaman, Wahidu

    2018-03-01

    Nowadays, there is a rising interest towards consuming health beneficial food products. Bread-as one of the most popular food products-could be improved to 'healthy bread' by addition of ingredients high in protein, dietary fiber and low in calorie. Incorporating Jackfruit rind powder (JRP) as a by-product rich in dietary fiber in bread, could not only provide health beneficial bread products, but also lead to develop an environmental friendly technology by solving the problem of waste disposal of residues. In this study, addition of jackfruit rind powder (JRP) as a high dietary fiber and functional ingredient in bread was examined. The results showed that incorporation of JRP in bread improved functional properties of flour such as Oil Holding Capacity (OHC), Water Holding Capacity (WHC) and pasting properties. Addition of 5%, 10% and 15% of JRP in wheat flour caused significantly (p bread products. Results from proximate composition indicated that all breads substituted with JRP, contained significantly (p bread products.

  3. Orthogonal sparse linear discriminant analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Zhonghua; Liu, Gang; Pu, Jiexin; Wang, Xiaohong; Wang, Haijun

    2018-03-01

    Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a linear feature extraction approach, and it has received much attention. On the basis of LDA, researchers have done a lot of research work on it, and many variant versions of LDA were proposed. However, the inherent problem of LDA cannot be solved very well by the variant methods. The major disadvantages of the classical LDA are as follows. First, it is sensitive to outliers and noises. Second, only the global discriminant structure is preserved, while the local discriminant information is ignored. In this paper, we present a new orthogonal sparse linear discriminant analysis (OSLDA) algorithm. The k nearest neighbour graph is first constructed to preserve the locality discriminant information of sample points. Then, L2,1-norm constraint on the projection matrix is used to act as loss function, which can make the proposed method robust to outliers in data points. Extensive experiments have been performed on several standard public image databases, and the experiment results demonstrate the performance of the proposed OSLDA algorithm.

  4. Sex determination using discriminant function analysis in Indigenous (Kurubas) children and adolescents of Coorg, Karnataka, India: A lateral cephalometric study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devang Divakar, Darshan; John, Jacob; Al Kheraif, Abdulaziz Abdullah; Mavinapalla, Seema; Ramakrishnaiah, Ravikumar; Vellappally, Sajith; Hashem, Mohamed Ibrahim; Dalati, M H N; Durgesh, B H; Safadi, Rima A; Anil, Sukumaran

    2016-11-01

    Aim: To test the validity of sex discrimination using lateral cephalometric radiograph and discriminant function analysis in Indigenous (Kuruba) children and adolescents of Coorg, Karnataka, India. Methods and materials: Six hundred and sixteen lateral cephalograms of 380 male and 236 females of age ranging from 6.5 to 18 years of Indigenous population of Coorg, Karnataka, India called Kurubas having a normal occlusion were included in the study. Lateral cephalograms were obtained in a standard position with teeth in centric occlusion and lips relaxed. Each radiograph was traced and cephalometric landmarks were measured using digital calliper. Calculations of 24 cephalometric measurements were performed. Results: Males exhibited significantly greater mean angular and linear cephalometric measurements as compared to females ( p  gender. The reliability of the derived discriminant function was assessed among study subjects; 100% of males and females were recognized correctly. Conclusion: The final outcome of this study validates the existence of sexual dimorphism in the skeleton as early as 6.5 years of age. There is a need for further research to determine other landmarks that can help in sex determination and norms for Indigenous (Kuruba) population and also other Indigenous population of Coorg, Karnataka, India.

  5. Spatial discrimination and visual discrimination

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haagensen, Annika M. J.; Grand, Nanna; Klastrup, Signe

    2013-01-01

    Two methods investigating learning and memory in juvenile Gottingen minipigs were evaluated for potential use in preclinical toxicity testing. Twelve minipigs were tested using a spatial hole-board discrimination test including a learning phase and two memory phases. Five minipigs were tested...... in a visual discrimination test. The juvenile minipigs were able to learn the spatial hole-board discrimination test and showed improved working and reference memory during the learning phase. Performance in the memory phases was affected by the retention intervals, but the minipigs were able to remember...... the concept of the test in both memory phases. Working memory and reference memory were significantly improved in the last trials of the memory phases. In the visual discrimination test, the minipigs learned to discriminate between the three figures presented to them within 9-14 sessions. For the memory test...

  6. Discriminating Bacteria with Optical Sensors Based on Functionalized Nanoporous Xerogels

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabine Crunaire

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available An innovative and low-cost method is proposed for the detection and discrimination of indole-positive pathogen bacteria. The method allows the non-invasive detection of gaseous indole, released by bacteria, with nanoporous colorimetric sensors. The innovation comes from the use of nanoporous matrices doped with 4-(dimethylamino-cinnamaldehyde, which act as sponges to trap and concentrate the targeted analyte and turn from transparent to dark green, long before the colonies get visible with naked eyes. With such sensors, it was possible to discriminate E. coli from H. alvei, two indole-positive and negative bacteria after seven hours of incubation.

  7. Faster native vowel discrimination learning in musicians is mediated by an optimization of mnemonic functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elmer, Stefan; Greber, Marielle; Pushparaj, Arethy; Kühnis, Jürg; Jäncke, Lutz

    2017-09-01

    The ability to discriminate phonemes varying in spectral and temporal attributes constitutes one of the most basic intrinsic elements underlying language learning mechanisms. Since previous work has consistently shown that professional musicians are characterized by perceptual and cognitive advantages in a variety of language-related tasks, and since vowels can be considered musical sounds within the domain of speech, here we investigated the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of native vowel discrimination learning in a sample of professional musicians and non-musicians. We evaluated the contribution of both the neurophysiological underpinnings of perceptual (i.e., N1/P2 complex) and mnemonic functions (i.e., N400 and P600 responses) while the participants were instructed to judge whether pairs of native consonant-vowel (CV) syllables manipulated in the first formant transition of the vowel (i.e., from /tu/ to /to/) were identical or not. Results clearly demonstrated faster learning in musicians, compared to non-musicians, as reflected by shorter reaction times and higher accuracy. Most notably, in terms of morphology, time course, and voltage strength, this steeper learning curve was accompanied by distinctive N400 and P600 manifestations between the two groups. In contrast, we did not reveal any group differences during the early stages of auditory processing (i.e., N1/P2 complex), suggesting that faster learning was mediated by an optimization of mnemonic but not perceptual functions. Based on a clear taxonomy of the mnemonic functions involved in the task, results are interpreted as pointing to a relationship between faster learning mechanisms in musicians and an optimization of echoic (i.e., N400 component) and working memory (i.e., P600 component) functions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Discrimination and Anti-discrimination in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Tore Vincents

    The purpose of this report is to describe and analyse Danish anti-discrimination legislation and the debate about discrimination in Denmark in order to identify present and future legal challenges. The main focus is the implementation of the EU anti-discrimination directives in Danish law...

  9. Robust Nonnegative Matrix Factorization via Joint Graph Laplacian and Discriminative Information for Identifying Differentially Expressed Genes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ling-Yun Dai

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Differential expression plays an important role in cancer diagnosis and classification. In recent years, many methods have been used to identify differentially expressed genes. However, the recognition rate and reliability of gene selection still need to be improved. In this paper, a novel constrained method named robust nonnegative matrix factorization via joint graph Laplacian and discriminative information (GLD-RNMF is proposed for identifying differentially expressed genes, in which manifold learning and the discriminative label information are incorporated into the traditional nonnegative matrix factorization model to train the objective matrix. Specifically, L2,1-norm minimization is enforced on both the error function and the regularization term which is robust to outliers and noise in gene data. Furthermore, the multiplicative update rules and the details of convergence proof are shown for the new model. The experimental results on two publicly available cancer datasets demonstrate that GLD-RNMF is an effective method for identifying differentially expressed genes.

  10. Discriminative learning for speech recognition

    CERN Document Server

    He, Xiadong

    2008-01-01

    In this book, we introduce the background and mainstream methods of probabilistic modeling and discriminative parameter optimization for speech recognition. The specific models treated in depth include the widely used exponential-family distributions and the hidden Markov model. A detailed study is presented on unifying the common objective functions for discriminative learning in speech recognition, namely maximum mutual information (MMI), minimum classification error, and minimum phone/word error. The unification is presented, with rigorous mathematical analysis, in a common rational-functio

  11. Discrimination of chromosome by autoradiography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Masubuchi, Masanori

    1975-01-01

    This paper describes discrimination of chromosome by autoradiography. In this method, the difference in DNA synthetic phase between each chromosome was used as a standard, and the used chromosome was in metaphase, as morphological characteristics were markedly in this phase. Cell cycle and autoradiography with 3 H-thymidine were also examined. In order to discriminate chromosome by autoradiography, it was effective to utilize the labelled pattern in late DNA synthetic phase, where asynchronous replication of chromosome appeared most obviously. DNA synthesis in chromosome was examined in each DNA synthetic phase by culturing the chromosome after the treatment with 3 H-thymidine and altering the time to prepare chromosome specimen. Discrimination of chromosome in plants and animals by autoradiography was also mentioned. It was noticed as a structural and functional discrimination of chromosome to observe amino acid uptake into chromosome protein and to utilize the difference in labelled pattern between the sites of chromosome. (K. Serizawa)

  12. Optimisation of a machine learning algorithm in human locomotion using principal component and discriminant function analyses

    OpenAIRE

    Bisele, M; Bencsik, M; Lewis, MGC; Barnett, CT

    2017-01-01

    Assessment methods in human locomotion often involve the description of normalised graphical profiles and/or the extraction of discrete variables. Whilst useful, these approaches may not represent the full complexity of gait data. Multivariate statistical methods, such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA), have been adopted since they have the potential to overcome these data handling issues. The aim of the current study was to develop and optimise a ...

  13. Modifying influence of incorporated 137Cs upon the mechanisms of adrenergic control over contractile myucard function

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lobanok, L.M.; Bulanova, K.Ya.; Gerasimovich, N.V.; Sineleva, M.V.; Milyutin, A.A.

    1994-01-01

    Incorporated 137 Cs (absorbed dose of 0.26 Gy) causes decrease of myocard's contractile function and intropic response to β-adrenagonists effect, isoproterenol-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity and β-adrenoreceptors affinity. Adrenergic effects, mediated by α-adrenergic structures on heart contractile function, on the contrary, become stronger, that is due to the increase of the receptors' dencity on sarcolemma surface

  14. Incorporation of in-plane interconnects to reflow bonding for electrical functionality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moğulkoç, B; Jansen, H V; Ter Brake, H J M; Elwenspoek, M C

    2011-01-01

    Incorporation of in-plane electrical interconnects to reflow bonding is studied to provide electrical functionality to lab-on-a-chip or microfluidic devices. Reflow bonding is the packaging technology, in which glass tubes are joined to silicon substrates at elevated temperatures. The tubes are used to interface the silicon-based fluidic devices and are directly compatible with standard Swagelok® connectors. After the bonding, the electrically conductive lines will allow probing into the volume confined by the tube, where the fluidic device operates. Therefore methods for fabricating electrical interconnects that survive the bonding procedure at elevated temperature and do not alter the properties of the bond interface are investigated

  15. Training on Movement Figure-Ground Discrimination Remediates Low-Level Visual Timing Deficits in the Dorsal Stream, Improving High-Level Cognitive Functioning, Including Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory

    OpenAIRE

    Lawton, Teri; Shelley-Tremblay, John

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine whether neurotraining to discriminate a moving test pattern relative to a stationary background, figure-ground discrimination, improves vision and cognitive functioning in dyslexics, as well as typically-developing normal students. We predict that improving the speed and sensitivity of figure-ground movement discrimination (PATH to Reading neurotraining) acts to remediate visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream, thereby improving processing speed...

  16. determination of sex in south african blacks by discriminant function analysis of mandibular linear dimensions : A preliminary investigation using the zulu local population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franklin, Daniel; O'Higgins, Paul; Oxnard, Charles E; Dadour, Ian

    2006-12-01

    The determination of sex is a critical component in forensic anthropological investigation. The literature attests to numerous metrical standards, each utilizing diffetent skeletal elements, for sex determination in South A frican Blacks. Metrical standards are popular because they provide a high degree of expected accuracy and are less error-prone than subjective nonmetric visual techniques. We note, however, that there appears to be no established metric mandible discriminant function standards for sex determination in this population.We report here on a preliminary investigation designed to evaluate whether the mandible is a practical element for sex determination in South African Blacks. The sample analyzed comprises 40 nonpathological Zulu individuals drawn from the R.A. Dart Collection. Ten linear measurements, obtained from mathematically trans-formed three-dimensional landmark data, are analyzed using basic univariate statistics and discriminant function analyses. Seven of the 10 measurements examined are found to be sexually dimorphic; the dimensions of the ramus are most dimorphic. The sex classification accuracy of the discriminant functions ranged from 72.5 to 87.5% for the univariate method, 92.5% for the stepwise method, and 57.5 to 95% for the direct method. We conclude that the mandible is an extremely useful element for sex determination in this population.

  17. Differential discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dukhanov, V.I.; Mazurov, I.B.

    1981-01-01

    A principal flowsheet of a differential discriminator intended for operation in a spectrometric circuit with statistical time distribution of pulses is described. The differential discriminator includes four integrated discriminators and a channel of piled-up signal rejection. The presence of the rejection channel enables the discriminator to operate effectively at loads of 14x10 3 pulse/s. The temperature instability of the discrimination thresholds equals 250 μV/ 0 C. The discrimination level changes within 0.1-5 V, the level shift constitutes 0.5% for the filling ratio of 1:10. The rejection coefficient is not less than 90%. Alpha spectrum of the 228 Th source is presented to evaluate the discriminator operation with the rejector. The rejector provides 50 ns time resolution

  18. Structural Discrimination

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thorsen, Mira Skadegård

    discrimination as two ways of articulating particular, opaque forms of racial discrimination that occur in everyday Danish (and other) contexts, and have therefore become normalized. I present and discuss discrimination as it surfaces in data from my empirical studies of discrimination in Danish contexts...

  19. Four-deep charge-time and pulse-width scaling discriminator for delay line MWPC's

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, K.L.; Kirsten, F.A.; Grigorian, A.; Guiragossian, Z.G.T.

    1976-01-01

    A discriminator has been developed for digitizing both intercepted total charge and location of electromagnetic shower and particle trajectories in multi-wire proportional chambers read by delay lines. Determination of shower trajectory is aided by video signal integration followed by centroid-locating discrimination. Calibrated run-down of the signal integrating capacitor gives the charge information above a given threshold level. The discriminator is designed to handle up to four shower-induced video signals per event by incorporating steering circuits within the module. Each video signal is examined for time over an adjustable threshold. Video pulses with separation of less than 20 nsec are treated as a single pulse. Counter-logic circuits indicate the number of video signals digitized. These signal processing circuits provide a first level of data sifting which otherwise must be carried out with additional discriminator channels and added complexity in data recognition

  20. The Utility of the MMPI-2 Malingering Discriminant Function Index in the Detection of Malingering: A Study of Criminal Defendants

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toomey, Joseph A.; Kucharski, L. Thomas; Duncan, Scott

    2009-01-01

    This study examined the utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2's (MMPI-2) malingering discriminant function index (M-DFI), recently developed by Bacchiochi and Bagby, in the detection of malingering in a forensic sample. Criminal defendants were divided into "malingering" and "not malingering" groups using…

  1. Further studies of crania from ancient northern Africa: an analysis of crania from first dynasty Egyptian tombs, using discriminant functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keita, S O

    1992-03-01

    An analysis of First Dynasty crania from Abydos was undertaken using multiple discriminant functions. The results demonstrate greater affinity with Upper Nile Valley patterns, but also suggest change from earlier craniometric trends. Gene flow and movement of northern officials to the important southern city may explain the findings.

  2. LLNL's Regional Seismic Discrimination Research

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hanley, W; Mayeda, K; Myers, S; Pasyanos, M; Rodgers, A; Sicherman, A; Walter, W

    1999-01-01

    As part of the Department of Energy's research and development effort to improve the monitoring capability of the planned Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty international monitoring system, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLNL) is testing and calibrating regional seismic discrimination algorithms in the Middle East, North Africa and Western Former Soviet Union. The calibration process consists of a number of steps: (1) populating the database with independently identified regional events; (2) developing regional boundaries and pre-identifying severe regional phase blockage zones; (3) measuring and calibrating coda based magnitude scales; (4a) measuring regional amplitudes and making magnitude and distance amplitude corrections (MDAC); (4b) applying the DOE modified kriging methodology to MDAC results using the regionalized background model; (5) determining the thresholds of detectability of regional phases as a function of phase type and frequency; (6) evaluating regional phase discriminant performance both singly and in combination; (7) combining steps 1-6 to create a calibrated discrimination surface for each stations; (8) assessing progress and iterating. We have now developed this calibration procedure to the point where it is fairly straightforward to apply earthquake-explosion discrimination in regions with ample empirical data. Several of the steps outlined above are discussed in greater detail in other DOE papers in this volume or in recent publications. Here we emphasize the results of the above process: station correction surfaces and their improvement to discrimination results compared with simpler calibration methods. Some of the outstanding discrimination research issues involve cases in which there is little or no empirical data. For example in many cases there is no regional nuclear explosion data at IMS stations or nearby surrogates. We have taken two approaches to this problem, first finding and using mining explosion data when available, and

  3. Impaired somatosensory discrimination of shape in Parkinson's disease : Association with caudate nucleus dopaminergic function

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Weder, BJ; Leenders, KL; Vontobel, P; Nienhusmeier, M; Keel, A; Zaunbauer, W; Vonesch, T; Ludin, HP

    1999-01-01

    Tactile discrimination of macrogeometric objects in a two-alternative forced-choice procedure represents a demanding task involving somatosensory pathways and higher cognitive processing. The objects for somatosensory discrimination, i.e., rectangular parallelepipeds differing only in oblongness,

  4. Examining Workplace Discrimination in a Discrimination-Free Environment

    OpenAIRE

    Braxton, Shawn Lamont

    2010-01-01

    Examining Workplace Discrimination in a Discrimination-Free Environment Shawn L. Braxton Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore how racial and gender discrimination is reproduced in concrete workplace settings even when anti-discrimination policies are present, and to understand the various reactions utilized by those who commonly experience it. I have selected a particular medical center, henceforth referred to by a pseudonym, â The Bliley Medical Centerâ as my case ...

  5. Discriminating the reaction types of plant type III polyketide synthases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shimizu, Yugo; Ogata, Hiroyuki; Goto, Susumu

    2017-07-01

    Functional prediction of paralogs is challenging in bioinformatics because of rapid functional diversification after gene duplication events combined with parallel acquisitions of similar functions by different paralogs. Plant type III polyketide synthases (PKSs), producing various secondary metabolites, represent a paralogous family that has undergone gene duplication and functional alteration. Currently, there is no computational method available for the functional prediction of type III PKSs. We developed a plant type III PKS reaction predictor, pPAP, based on the recently proposed classification of type III PKSs. pPAP combines two kinds of similarity measures: one calculated by profile hidden Markov models (pHMMs) built from functionally and structurally important partial sequence regions, and the other based on mutual information between residue positions. pPAP targets PKSs acting on ring-type starter substrates, and classifies their functions into four reaction types. The pHMM approach discriminated two reaction types with high accuracy (97.5%, 39/40), but its accuracy decreased when discriminating three reaction types (87.8%, 43/49). When combined with a correlation-based approach, all 49 PKSs were correctly discriminated, and pPAP was still highly accurate (91.4%, 64/70) even after adding other reaction types. These results suggest pPAP, which is based on linear discriminant analyses of similarity measures, is effective for plant type III PKS function prediction. pPAP is freely available at ftp://ftp.genome.jp/pub/tools/ppap/. goto@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

  6. Discrimination of bromodeoxyuridine labelled and unlabelled mitotic cells in flow cytometric bromodeoxyuridine/DNA analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, P O; Larsen, J K; Christensen, I J

    1994-01-01

    Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) labelled and unlabelled mitotic cells, respectively, can be discriminated from interphase cells using a new method, based on immunocytochemical staining of BrdUrd and flow cytometric four-parameter analysis of DNA content, BrdUrd incorporation, and forward and orthogona...

  7. Neighborhood Discriminant Hashing for Large-Scale Image Retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tang, Jinhui; Li, Zechao; Wang, Meng; Zhao, Ruizhen

    2015-09-01

    With the proliferation of large-scale community-contributed images, hashing-based approximate nearest neighbor search in huge databases has aroused considerable interest from the fields of computer vision and multimedia in recent years because of its computational and memory efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel hashing method named neighborhood discriminant hashing (NDH) (for short) to implement approximate similarity search. Different from the previous work, we propose to learn a discriminant hashing function by exploiting local discriminative information, i.e., the labels of a sample can be inherited from the neighbor samples it selects. The hashing function is expected to be orthogonal to avoid redundancy in the learned hashing bits as much as possible, while an information theoretic regularization is jointly exploited using maximum entropy principle. As a consequence, the learned hashing function is compact and nonredundant among bits, while each bit is highly informative. Extensive experiments are carried out on four publicly available data sets and the comparison results demonstrate the outperforming performance of the proposed NDH method over state-of-the-art hashing techniques.

  8. On the Use of Shortwave Infrared for Tree Species Discrimination in Tropical Semideciduous Forest

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferreira, M. P.; Zortea, M.; Zanotta, D. C.; Féret, J. B.; Shimabukuro, Y. E.; Souza Filho, C. R.

    2015-08-01

    Tree species mapping in tropical forests provides valuable insights for forest managers. Keystone species can be located for collection of seeds for forest restoration, reducing fieldwork costs. However, mapping of tree species in tropical forests using remote sensing data is a challenge due to high floristic and spectral diversity. Little is known about the use of different spectral regions as most of studies performed so far used visible/near-infrared (390-1000 nm) features. In this paper we show the contribution of shortwave infrared (SWIR, 1045-2395 nm) for tree species discrimination in a tropical semideciduous forest. Using high-resolution hyperspectral data we also simulated WorldView-3 (WV-3) multispectral bands for classification purposes. Three machine learning methods were tested to discriminate species at the pixel-level: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machines with Linear (L-SVM) and Radial Basis Function (RBF-SVM) kernels, and Random Forest (RF). Experiments were performed using all and selected features from the VNIR individually and combined with SWIR. Feature selection was applied to evaluate the effects of dimensionality reduction and identify potential wavelengths that may optimize species discrimination. Using VNIR hyperspectral bands, RBF-SVM achieved the highest average accuracy (77.4%). Inclusion of the SWIR increased accuracy to 85% with LDA. The same pattern was also observed when WV-3 simulated channels were used to classify the species. The VNIR bands provided and accuracy of 64.2% for LDA, which was increased to 79.8 % using the new SWIR bands that are operationally available in this platform. Results show that incorporating SWIR bands increased significantly average accuracy for both the hyperspectral data and WorldView-3 simulated bands.

  9. Optimal item discrimination and maximum information for logistic IRT models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Veerkamp, W.J.J.; Veerkamp, Wim J.J.; Berger, Martijn P.F.; Berger, Martijn

    1999-01-01

    Items with the highest discrimination parameter values in a logistic item response theory model do not necessarily give maximum information. This paper derives discrimination parameter values, as functions of the guessing parameter and distances between person parameters and item difficulty, that

  10. Dissociable contributions of the orbitofrontal and infralimbic cortex to pavlovian autoshaping and discrimination reversal learning: further evidence for the functional heterogeneity of the rodent frontal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chudasama, Y; Robbins, Trevor W

    2003-09-24

    To examine possible heterogeneity of function within the ventral regions of the rodent frontal cortex, the present study compared the effects of excitotoxic lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the infralimbic cortex (ILC) on pavlovian autoshaping and discrimination reversal learning. During the pavlovian autoshaping task, in which rats learn to approach a stimulus predictive of reward [conditional stimulus (CS+)], only the OFC group failed to acquire discriminated approach but was unimpaired when preoperatively trained. In the visual discrimination learning and reversal task, rats were initially required to discriminate a stimulus positively associated with reward. There was no effect of either OFC or ILC lesions on discrimination learning. When the stimulus-reward contingencies were reversed, both groups of animals committed more errors, but only the OFC-lesioned animals were unable to suppress the previously rewarded stimulus-reward association, committing more "stimulus perseverative" errors. In contrast, the ILC group showed a pattern of errors that was more attributable to "learning" than perseveration. These findings suggest two types of dissociation between the effects of OFC and ILC lesions: (1) OFC lesions impaired the learning processes implicated in pavlovian autoshaping but not instrumental simultaneous discrimination learning, whereas ILC lesions were unimpaired at autoshaping and their reversal learning deficit did not reflect perseveration, and (2) OFC lesions induced perseverative responding in reversal learning but did not disinhibit responses to pavlovian CS-. In contrast, the ILC lesion had no effect on response inhibitory control in either of these settings. The findings are discussed in the context of dissociable executive functions in ventral sectors of the rat prefrontal cortex.

  11. A discrimination task used as a novel method of testing decision-making behavior following traumatic brain injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martens, Kris M; Vonder Haar, Cole; Hutsell, Blake A; Hoane, Michael R

    2012-10-10

    Traumatic brain injury (TBI) results in a multitude of deficits following injury. Some of the most pervasive in humans are the changes that affect frontally-mediated cognitive functioning, such as decision making. The assessment of decision-making behavior in rodents has been extensively tested in the field of the experimental analysis of behavior. However, due to the narrow therapeutic window following TBI, time-intensive operant paradigms are rarely incorporated into the battery of tests traditionally used, the majority of which assess motor and sensory functioning. The cognitive measures that are used are frequently limited to memory and do not account for changes in decision-making behavior. The purpose of the present study was to develop a simplified discrimination task that can assess deficits in decision-making behavior in rodents. For the task, rats were required to dig in cocoa-scented sand (versus unscented sand) for a reinforcer. Rats were given 12 sessions per day until a criterion level of 80% accuracy for 3 days straight was reached. Once the criterion was achieved, cortical contusion injuries were induced (frontal, parietal, or sham). Following a recovery period, the rats were re-tested on cocoa versus unscented sand. Upon reaching criterion, a reversal discrimination was evaluated in which the reinforcer was placed in unscented sand. Finally, a novel scent discrimination (basil versus coffee with basil reinforced), and a reversal (coffee) were evaluated. The results indicated that the Dig task is a simple experimental preparation that can be used to assess deficits in decision-making behavior following TBI.

  12. Discrimination of source reactor type by multivariate statistical analysis of uranium and plutonium isotopic concentrations in unknown irradiated nuclear fuel material.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robel, Martin; Kristo, Michael J

    2008-11-01

    The problem of identifying the provenance of unknown nuclear material in the environment by multivariate statistical analysis of its uranium and/or plutonium isotopic composition is considered. Such material can be introduced into the environment as a result of nuclear accidents, inadvertent processing losses, illegal dumping of waste, or deliberate trafficking in nuclear materials. Various combinations of reactor type and fuel composition were analyzed using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLSDA) of the concentrations of nine U and Pu isotopes in fuel as a function of burnup. Real-world variation in the concentrations of (234)U and (236)U in the fresh (unirradiated) fuel was incorporated. The U and Pu were also analyzed separately, with results that suggest that, even after reprocessing or environmental fractionation, Pu isotopes can be used to determine both the source reactor type and the initial fuel composition with good discrimination.

  13. Discrimination of nuclear-explosion and lightning electromagnetic pulse

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Qi Shufeng; Li Ximei; Han Shaoqing; Niu Chao; Feng Jun; Liu Daizhi

    2012-01-01

    The discrimination of nuclear-explosion and lightning electromagnetic pulses was studied using empirical mode decomposition and the fractal analytical method. The box dimensions of nuclear-explosion and lightning electromagnetic pulses' original signals were calculated, and the box dimensions of the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) of nuclear-explosion and lightning electromagnetic pulses' original signals after empirical mode decomposition were also obtained. The discrimination of nuclear explosion and lightning was studied using the nearest neighbor classification. The experimental results show that, the discrimination rate of the box dimension based on the first and second IMF after the original signal empirical mode decomposition is higher than that based on the third and forth IMF; the discrimination rate of the box dimension based on the original signal is higher than that based on any IMF; and the discrimination rate based on two-dimensional and three-dimensional characters is higher and more stable than that based on one-dimensional character, besides, the discrimination rate based on three-dimensional character is over 90%. (authors)

  14. The use of the discriminant analysis method for e π μ separation in BES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jiang Zhijin; Wang Taijie; Xie Yigang; Huang Tao

    1994-01-01

    We use the discriminant analysis method in multivariate statistical theory to handle the e π μ separation in BES, describing the principle of the discriminant analysis method, deriving the unstandardized discriminant functions (responsible for particle separation), giving the discriminant efficiency for e π μ and comparing the results from the discriminant analysis method with those obtained in a conventional way. ((orig.))

  15. Probabilistic numerical discrimination in mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berkay, Dilara; Çavdaroğlu, Bilgehan; Balcı, Fuat

    2016-03-01

    Previous studies showed that both human and non-human animals can discriminate between different quantities (i.e., time intervals, numerosities) with a limited level of precision due to their endogenous/representational uncertainty. In addition, other studies have shown that subjects can modulate their temporal categorization responses adaptively by incorporating information gathered regarding probabilistic contingencies into their time-based decisions. Despite the psychophysical similarities between the interval timing and nonverbal counting functions, the sensitivity of count-based decisions to probabilistic information remains an unanswered question. In the current study, we investigated whether exogenous probabilistic information can be integrated into numerosity-based judgments by mice. In the task employed in this study, reward was presented either after few (i.e., 10) or many (i.e., 20) lever presses, the last of which had to be emitted on the lever associated with the corresponding trial type. In order to investigate the effect of probabilistic information on performance in this task, we manipulated the relative frequency of different trial types across different experimental conditions. We evaluated the behavioral performance of the animals under models that differed in terms of their assumptions regarding the cost of responding (e.g., logarithmically increasing vs. no response cost). Our results showed for the first time that mice could adaptively modulate their count-based decisions based on the experienced probabilistic contingencies in directions predicted by optimality.

  16. Enhancement of the functionality of bread by incorporation of Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Nishu; Jha, Alok; Chaudhary, Anand; Upadhyay, Ashutosh

    2014-09-01

    In view of the wider consumption of bakery products, they could be good choice for the delivery of functionality. The present study attempts to develop a functional formulation of bread by incorporation of shatavari (Asparagus racemosus Willd.), which is an important medicinal plant of India. Central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was used for experiments in which yeast and shatavari powder were taken as variables. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the bread formulations on the basis of hardness, adhesiveness, springiness, chewiness and cohesiveness as responses. Qualitative tests were performed for assessing the presence of phytochemicals in shatavari bread. Sensory attributes of the shatavari bread were evaluated using descriptive analysis technique. The optimum acceptable level for shatavari and yeast in bread was found to be 3.5 % and 4.96 %, respectively. All the phytochemicals such as alkaloid, steroid, terpenoid and saponin present in original herbs were also present in bread. However flavonoids were not found in the bread when analysed qualitatively and using TLC.

  17. Large-Deviation Results for Discriminant Statistics of Gaussian Locally Stationary Processes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junichi Hirukawa

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the large-deviation principle of discriminant statistics for Gaussian locally stationary processes. First, large-deviation theorems for quadratic forms and the log-likelihood ratio for a Gaussian locally stationary process with a mean function are proved. Their asymptotics are described by the large deviation rate functions. Second, we consider the situations where processes are misspecified to be stationary. In these misspecified cases, we formally make the log-likelihood ratio discriminant statistics and derive the large deviation theorems of them. Since they are complicated, they are evaluated and illustrated by numerical examples. We realize the misspecification of the process to be stationary seriously affecting our discrimination.

  18. Polyethyleneglycol diacrylate hydrogels with plasmonic gold nanospheres incorporated via functional group optimization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ponnuvelu, Dinesh Veeran; Kim, Seokbeom; Lee, Jungchul

    2017-12-01

    We present a facile method for the preparation of polyethyleneglycol diacrylate (PEG-DA) hydrogels with plasmonic gold (Au) nanospheres incorporated for various biological and chemical sensing applications. Plasmonic Au nanospheres were prepared ex situ using the standard citrate reduction method with an average diameter of 3.5 nm and a standard deviation of 0.5 nm, and evaluated for their surface functionalization process intended for uniform dispersion in polymer matrices. UV-Visible spectroscopy reveals the existence of plasmonic properties for pristine Au nanospheres, functionalized Au nanospheres, and PEG-DA with uniformly dispersed functionalized Au nanospheres (hybrid Au/PEG-DA hydrogels). Hybrid Au/PEG-DA hydrogels examined by using Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FT-IR) exhibit the characteristic bands at 1635, 1732 and 2882 cm-1 corresponding to reaction products of OH- originating from oxidized product of citrate, -C=O stretching from ester bond, and C-H stretching of PEG-DA, respectively. Thermal studies of hybrid Au/PEG-DA hydrogels show three-stage decomposition with their stabilities up to 500 °C. Optical properties and thermal stabilities associated with the uniform dispersion of Au nanospheres within hydrogels reported herein will facilitate various biological and chemical sensing applications.

  19. Discrimination of elderly patients in the health care system of Lithuania

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristina Selli

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Aim: This study aimed to explore and describe the barriers that elderly Lithuanians experience with respect to going to court or other institutions to defend their right not to be discriminated regarding medical care. Methods: We used a mixed methods approach due to the scarcity of information in Lithuania. First, the review of laws was done using the e-tar database and court cases were searched using the e-teismai database followed by policy analysis. Additional sources of information were identified searching Google Scholar and PubMed, as well as Google for grey literature. The keywords used were: ageism in patient care, discrimination against elderly, elderly and health (English and Lithuanian: 2000-2015. Secondly, we conducted in-depth individual interviews with 27 clients of newly-established integrated home care services: 13 elderly patients, and 14 informal caregivers. Results:  This study identified five groups of barriers explaining why Lithuanian elderly are hesitant to fight discrimination in the health system. The results of the study disclose the following barriers that the elderly in Lithuania face: i the lack of recognition of the phenomenon of discrimination against the elderly in patient care; ii the lack of information for complaining and the fear of consequences of complaining; iii the deficiencies and uncertainties of laws and regulations devoted to discrimination; iv the high level of burden of proof in court cases and lack of good practices; v the lack of a patient (human rights-based approach in all policies and in education as well as the lack of intersectoral work. Conclusions:  This study disclosed the need to: encourage training of legists and lawyers in expanding knowledge and skills in human rights in patient care;  encourage training of health care professionals – the burden of leadership for this has to be assumed by universities and public health professionals; incorporate a new article in the ‘Law on the

  20. The Category Cued Recall test in very mild Alzheimer's disease: discriminative validity and correlation with semantic memory functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogel, A; Mortensen, E L; Gade, A; Waldemar, G

    2007-01-01

    Episodic memory tests that measure cued recall may be particularly effective in the diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease (AD) because they examine both episodic and semantic memory functions. The Category Cued Recall (CCR) test provides superordinate semantic cues at encoding and retrieval, and high discriminative validity has been claimed for this test. The aim of this study was to investigate the discriminative validity for this test when compared with the 10-word memory list from Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS-cog) that measures free recall. The clinical diagnosis of AD was taken as the standard. It was also investigated whether the two episodic memory tests correlated with measures of semantic memory. The tests were administered to 35 patients with very mild AD (Mini Mental State Examination score >22) and 28 control subjects. Both tests had high sensitivity (>88%) with high specificity (>89%). One out of the five semantic memory tests was significantly correlated to performances on CCR, whereas delayed recall on the ADAS-cog memory test was significantly correlated to two semantic tests. In conclusion, the discriminative validity of the CCR test and the ADAS-cog memory test was equivalent in very mild AD. This may be because CCR did not tap more semantic processes, which are impaired in the earliest phases of AD, than a test of free recall.

  1. Uranium incorporation biokinetics in poultry bones as function of phytase doses

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arruda-Neto, J.D.T.; Cestari, A.C.; Zamboni, C.B.; Saiki, M.; Nogueira, G.P.; Fonseca, L.E.C.; Manso-Guevara, M.V.; Deppman, A.; Likhachev, V.P.; Mesa, J.

    2005-01-01

    Neutron activation analysis has been used to study uranium incorporation in poultry bones as function of chow doped with: (a) uranium (20 ppm); (b) U-doped food (20 ppm) plus phytase (120 ppm) and (c) U-doped food (20 ppm) plus phytase (180 ppm). To investigate this situation experiments involving several groups of Cobb broilers was performed. Two animals per group were sacrificed weekly up to their adultness and uranium concentration in the tibia was measured. It was observed that the concentration of uranium (μg U/g bone) is decreasing all along the animal life spanning period of 14-42 days. This behavior suggests that the skeleton mass is growing faster than the corresponding accumulation of uranium. The administration of phytase seems not to alter this scenario. (author)

  2. [Discrimination of Rice Syrup Adulterant of Acacia Honey Based Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yan-nan; Chen, Lan-zhen; Xue, Xiao-feng; Wu, Li-ming; Li, Yi; Yang, Juan

    2015-09-01

    At present, the rice syrup as a low price of the sweeteners was often adulterated into acacia honey and the adulterated honeys were sold in honey markets, while there is no suitable and fast method to identify honey adulterated with rice syrup. In this study, Near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) combined with chemometric methods were used to discriminate authenticity of honey. 20 unprocessed acacia honey samples from the different honey producing areas, mixed? with different proportion of rice syrup, were prepared of seven different concentration gradient? including 121 samples. The near infrared spectrum (NIR) instrument and spectrum processing software have been applied in the? spectrum? scanning and data conversion on adulterant samples, respectively. Then it was analyzed by Principal component analysis (PCA) and canonical discriminant analysis methods in order to discriminating adulterated honey. The results showed that after principal components analysis, the first two principal components accounted for 97.23% of total variation, but the regionalism of the score plot of the first two PCs was not obvious, so the canonical discriminant analysis was used to make the further discrimination, all samples had been discriminated correctly, the first two discriminant functions accounted for 91.6% among the six canonical discriminant functions, Then the different concentration of adulterant samples can be discriminated correctly, it illustrate that canonical discriminant analysis method combined with NIR spectroscopy is not only feasible but also practical for rapid and effective discriminate of the rice syrup adulterant of acacia honey.

  3. Cesium-incorporated indium-tin-oxide films for use as a cathode with low work function for a transparent organic light-emitting device

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Uchida, Takayuki; Mimura, Toshifumi; Ohtsuka, Masao; Otomo, Toshio; Ide, Mieko; Shida, Azusa; Sawada, Yutaka

    2006-01-01

    Transparent organic light-emitting devices (TOLEDs) were successfully fabricated utilizing a novel transparent conducting cathode with low work function. Cesium-incorporated indium-tin-oxide film was deposited on the organic layers with negligible damage by simultaneous operation of RF magnetron sputtering using an ITO target and vacuum evaporation of metallic cesium. Incorporation of cesium in the ITO film was confirmed by XPS analysis. The work function (4.3 eV) determined by photoelectron spectroscopy in air (PESA) was lower than that of 0.3-0.4-eV without cesium-incorporation and stable under the atmospheric environment. The electron injection efficiency of cesium-incorporated ITO cathode in the present transparent OLED fabricated was comparable to that of the previous double-layered structure comprising of ITO cathode and an organic buffer layer (BCP) doped by evaporation of cesium [T. Uchida, S. Kaneta, M. Ichihara, M. Ohtsuka, T. Otomo, D.R. Marx, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 44, No. 9 (2005) L282

  4. Pulse duration discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kosakovskij, L.F.

    1980-01-01

    Basic circuits of a discriminator for discrimination of pulses with the duration greater than the preset one, and of a multifunctional discriminator allowing to discriminate pulses with the duration greater (tsub(p)>tsub(s)) and lesser (tsub(p) tsub(s) and with the duration tsub(p) [ru

  5. Functional and antioxidant properties of novel snack crackers incorporated with Hibiscus sabdariffa by-product

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Zahra S.; Abozed, Safaa S.

    2014-01-01

    The Hibiscus sabdariffa calyxes’ residue (HSR) remained after the extraction of beverage is discarded which contributes to environmental pollution. The objective of this study was to explore the suitability of incorporating different amount of HSR (0%, 1.25%, 2.5%, 3.75%, and 5.0%) in crackers to enhance dietary fiber and antioxidant content. Physicochemical properties, antioxidants activity, nutritional quality, sensory profile and microstructure properties of samples containing HSR were examined and compared with control crackers. Cracker protein and fat levels decreased as HSR increased from 0.0% to 5% while ash increased. The total dietary fiber DF increased from 3.36% to 8.17% where the highest DF was reached at 5% HSR. The content of phenols increased from 5.99 to 17.57 mg/g and total flavonoid content increased from 49.36 to 104.63 mg/g of crackers incorporated with 5% HSR. DPPH radical scavenging activity increased two fold by increasing HSR up to 5%. HSR containing crackers exhibited darker L values than none/less HSR containing ones. In sensory ranking tests, acceptable crackers with pleasant flavor were obtained by incorporating up to 3.75% HSR into the cracker’s formula. Crackers prepared with 5% HSR received the poorest sensory rating compared to non/less HSR enriched cracker. Scanning electron microscopy (EM) images of the prepared crackers revealed marked changes caused by incorporating HSR as upon HSR addition the surface was observed to be scratched, cracker and rougher. Overall results suggest that HSR is a potential functional food ingredient high in fiber content and antioxidants activity that may be processed into flour and used in food applications, such as baked goods. PMID:25685546

  6. Discriminating Phytoplankton Functional Types (PFTs) in the Coastal Ocean Using the Inversion Algorithm Phydotax and Airborne Imaging Spectrometer Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palacios, Sherry L.; Schafer, Chris; Broughton, Jennifer; Guild, Liane S.; Kudela, Raphael M.

    2013-01-01

    There is a need in the Biological Oceanography community to discriminate among phytoplankton groups within the bulk chlorophyll pool to understand energy flow through ecosystems, to track the fate of carbon in the ocean, and to detect and monitor-for harmful algal blooms (HABs). The ocean color community has responded to this demand with the development of phytoplankton functional type (PFT) discrimination algorithms. These PFT algorithms fall into one of three categories depending on the science application: size-based, biogeochemical function, and taxonomy. The new PFT algorithm Phytoplankton Detection with Optics (PHYDOTax) is an inversion algorithm that discriminates taxon-specific biomass to differentiate among six taxa found in the California Current System: diatoms, dinoflagellates, haptophytes, chlorophytes, cryptophytes, and cyanophytes. PHYDOTax was developed and validated in Monterey Bay, CA for the high resolution imaging spectrometer, Spectroscopic Aerial Mapping System with On-board Navigation (SAMSON - 3.5 nm resolution). PHYDOTax exploits the high spectral resolution of an imaging spectrometer and the improved spatial resolution that airborne data provides for coastal areas. The objective of this study was to apply PHYDOTax to a relatively lower resolution imaging spectrometer to test the algorithm's sensitivity to atmospheric correction, to evaluate capability with other sensors, and to determine if down-sampling spectral resolution would degrade its ability to discriminate among phytoplankton taxa. This study is a part of the larger Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) airborne simulation campaign which is collecting Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) imagery aboard NASA's ER-2 aircraft during three seasons in each of two years over terrestrial and marine targets in California. Our aquatic component seeks to develop and test algorithms to retrieve water quality properties (e.g. HABs and river plumes) in both marine and in

  7. Prediction of cognitive outcome based on the progression of auditory discrimination during coma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juan, Elsa; De Lucia, Marzia; Tzovara, Athina; Beaud, Valérie; Oddo, Mauro; Clarke, Stephanie; Rossetti, Andrea O

    2016-09-01

    To date, no clinical test is able to predict cognitive and functional outcome of cardiac arrest survivors. Improvement of auditory discrimination in acute coma indicates survival with high specificity. Whether the degree of this improvement is indicative of recovery remains unknown. Here we investigated if progression of auditory discrimination can predict cognitive and functional outcome. We prospectively recorded electroencephalography responses to auditory stimuli of post-anoxic comatose patients on the first and second day after admission. For each recording, auditory discrimination was quantified and its evolution over the two recordings was used to classify survivors as "predicted" when it increased vs. "other" if not. Cognitive functions were tested on awakening and functional outcome was assessed at 3 months using the Cerebral Performance Categories (CPC) scale. Thirty-two patients were included, 14 "predicted survivors" and 18 "other survivors". "Predicted survivors" were more likely to recover basic cognitive functions shortly after awakening (ability to follow a standardized neuropsychological battery: 86% vs. 44%; p=0.03 (Fisher)) and to show a very good functional outcome at 3 months (CPC 1: 86% vs. 33%; p=0.004 (Fisher)). Moreover, progression of auditory discrimination during coma was strongly correlated with cognitive performance on awakening (phonemic verbal fluency: rs=0.48; p=0.009 (Spearman)). Progression of auditory discrimination during coma provides early indication of future recovery of cognitive functions. The degree of improvement is informative of the degree of functional impairment. If confirmed in a larger cohort, this test would be the first to predict detailed outcome at the single-patient level. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Training on Movement Figure-Ground Discrimination Remediates Low-Level Visual Timing Deficits in the Dorsal Stream, Improving High-Level Cognitive Functioning, Including Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Teri Lawton

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to determine whether neurotraining to discriminate a moving test pattern relative to a stationary background, figure-ground discrimination, improves vision and cognitive functioning in dyslexics, as well as typically-developing normal students. We predict that improving the speed and sensitivity of figure-ground movement discrimination (PATH to Reading neurotraining acts to remediate visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream, thereby improving processing speed, reading fluency, and the executive control functions of attention and working memory in both dyslexic and normal students who had PATH neurotraining more than in those students who had no neurotraining. This prediction was evaluated by measuring whether dyslexic and normal students improved on standardized tests of cognitive skills following neurotraining exercises, more than following computer-based guided reading (Raz-Kids (RK. The neurotraining used in this study was visually-based training designed to improve magnocellular function at both low and high levels in the dorsal stream: the input to the executive control networks coding working memory and attention. This approach represents a paradigm shift from the phonologically-based treatment for dyslexia, which concentrates on high-level speech and reading areas. This randomized controlled-validation study was conducted by training the entire second and third grade classrooms (42 students for 30 min twice a week before guided reading. Standardized tests were administered at the beginning and end of 12-weeks of intervention training to evaluate improvements in academic skills. Only movement-discrimination training remediated both low-level visual timing deficits and high-level cognitive functioning, including selective and sustained attention, reading fluency and working memory for both dyslexic and normal students. Remediating visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream revealed the causal role of visual

  9. Training on Movement Figure-Ground Discrimination Remediates Low-Level Visual Timing Deficits in the Dorsal Stream, Improving High-Level Cognitive Functioning, Including Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawton, Teri; Shelley-Tremblay, John

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine whether neurotraining to discriminate a moving test pattern relative to a stationary background, figure-ground discrimination, improves vision and cognitive functioning in dyslexics, as well as typically-developing normal students. We predict that improving the speed and sensitivity of figure-ground movement discrimination ( PATH to Reading neurotraining) acts to remediate visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream, thereby improving processing speed, reading fluency, and the executive control functions of attention and working memory in both dyslexic and normal students who had PATH neurotraining more than in those students who had no neurotraining. This prediction was evaluated by measuring whether dyslexic and normal students improved on standardized tests of cognitive skills following neurotraining exercises, more than following computer-based guided reading ( Raz-Kids ( RK )). The neurotraining used in this study was visually-based training designed to improve magnocellular function at both low and high levels in the dorsal stream: the input to the executive control networks coding working memory and attention. This approach represents a paradigm shift from the phonologically-based treatment for dyslexia, which concentrates on high-level speech and reading areas. This randomized controlled-validation study was conducted by training the entire second and third grade classrooms (42 students) for 30 min twice a week before guided reading. Standardized tests were administered at the beginning and end of 12-weeks of intervention training to evaluate improvements in academic skills. Only movement-discrimination training remediated both low-level visual timing deficits and high-level cognitive functioning, including selective and sustained attention, reading fluency and working memory for both dyslexic and normal students. Remediating visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream revealed the causal role of visual movement

  10. Training on Movement Figure-Ground Discrimination Remediates Low-Level Visual Timing Deficits in the Dorsal Stream, Improving High-Level Cognitive Functioning, Including Attention, Reading Fluency, and Working Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawton, Teri; Shelley-Tremblay, John

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine whether neurotraining to discriminate a moving test pattern relative to a stationary background, figure-ground discrimination, improves vision and cognitive functioning in dyslexics, as well as typically-developing normal students. We predict that improving the speed and sensitivity of figure-ground movement discrimination (PATH to Reading neurotraining) acts to remediate visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream, thereby improving processing speed, reading fluency, and the executive control functions of attention and working memory in both dyslexic and normal students who had PATH neurotraining more than in those students who had no neurotraining. This prediction was evaluated by measuring whether dyslexic and normal students improved on standardized tests of cognitive skills following neurotraining exercises, more than following computer-based guided reading (Raz-Kids (RK)). The neurotraining used in this study was visually-based training designed to improve magnocellular function at both low and high levels in the dorsal stream: the input to the executive control networks coding working memory and attention. This approach represents a paradigm shift from the phonologically-based treatment for dyslexia, which concentrates on high-level speech and reading areas. This randomized controlled-validation study was conducted by training the entire second and third grade classrooms (42 students) for 30 min twice a week before guided reading. Standardized tests were administered at the beginning and end of 12-weeks of intervention training to evaluate improvements in academic skills. Only movement-discrimination training remediated both low-level visual timing deficits and high-level cognitive functioning, including selective and sustained attention, reading fluency and working memory for both dyslexic and normal students. Remediating visual timing deficits in the dorsal stream revealed the causal role of visual movement

  11. Neural correlates supporting sensory discrimination after left hemisphere stroke

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borstad, Alexandra; Schmalbrock, Petra; Choi, Seongjin; Nichols-Larsen, Deborah S.

    2012-01-01

    Background Nearly half of stroke patients have impaired sensory discrimination, however, the neural structures that support post-stroke sensory function have not been described. Objectives 1) To evaluate the role of the primary somatosensory (S1) cortex in post-stroke sensory discrimination and 2) To determine the relationship between post-stroke sensory discrimination and structural integrity of the sensory component of the superior thalamic radiation (sSTR). Methods 10 healthy adults and 10 individuals with left hemisphere stroke participated. Stroke participants completed sensory discrimination testing. An fMRI was conducted during right, impaired hand sensory discrimination. Fractional anisotropy and volume of the sSTR were quantified using diffusion tensor tractography. Results Sensory discrimination was impaired in 60% of participants with left stroke. Peak activation in the left (S1) did not correlate with sensory discrimination ability, rather a more distributed pattern of activation was evident in post-stroke subjects with a positive correlation between peak activation in the parietal cortex and discrimination ability (r=.70, p=.023). The only brain region in which stroke participants had significantly different cortical activation than control participants was the precuneus. Region of interest analysis of the precuneus across stroke participants revealed a positive correlation between peak activation and sensory discrimination ability (r=.77, p=.008). The L/R ratio of sSTR fractional anisotropy also correlated with right hand sensory discrimination (r=.69, p=.027). Conclusions Precuneus cortex, distributed parietal lobe activity, and microstructure of the sSTR support sensory discrimination after left hemisphere stroke. PMID:22592076

  12. Unifying generative and discriminative learning principles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Strickert Marc

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The recognition of functional binding sites in genomic DNA remains one of the fundamental challenges of genome research. During the last decades, a plethora of different and well-adapted models has been developed, but only little attention has been payed to the development of different and similarly well-adapted learning principles. Only recently it was noticed that discriminative learning principles can be superior over generative ones in diverse bioinformatics applications, too. Results Here, we propose a generalization of generative and discriminative learning principles containing the maximum likelihood, maximum a posteriori, maximum conditional likelihood, maximum supervised posterior, generative-discriminative trade-off, and penalized generative-discriminative trade-off learning principles as special cases, and we illustrate its efficacy for the recognition of vertebrate transcription factor binding sites. Conclusions We find that the proposed learning principle helps to improve the recognition of transcription factor binding sites, enabling better computational approaches for extracting as much information as possible from valuable wet-lab data. We make all implementations available in the open-source library Jstacs so that this learning principle can be easily applied to other classification problems in the field of genome and epigenome analysis.

  13. Quantitative Classification of Quartz by Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy in Conjunction with Discriminant Function Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Ali

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available A responsive laser induced breakdown spectroscopic system was developed and improved for utilizing it as a sensor for the classification of quartz samples on the basis of trace elements present in the acquired samples. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS in conjunction with discriminant function analysis (DFA was applied for the classification of five different types of quartz samples. The quartz plasmas were produced at ambient pressure using Nd:YAG laser at fundamental harmonic mode (1064 nm. We optimized the detection system by finding the suitable delay time of the laser excitation. This is the first study, where the developed technique (LIBS+DFA was successfully employed to probe and confirm the elemental composition of quartz samples.

  14. Incorporation of tritium into planctonic algae in a continuous culture under dynamic conditions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Strack, S.; Kistner, G.; Emeis, C.C.

    1979-01-01

    For the purpose of modelling the ecologic behaviour of organically bound tritium (OBT) in aquatic food chains under dynamic conditions (i.e. by changing tritium concentrations), a continuous culture of algae was chosen to which tritium was added by a single injection as tritiated water (HTO). The culture was working according to the chemostatic principle where the concentration of cells is in a steady state. Therefore, according to the growth of algae, tritium is incorporated into the organic substance, while in a parallel process HTO and algae are eliminated from the system at the same rate. From these two processes of first-order kinetics, a special function resulted for the concentration process of OBT in the fermenter that is well known in the field of drug kinetics. Initially it increases until it reaches a maximum value where it intersects the elimination curve of HTO, then decreases and asymptotically approaches the time axis - in the same manner as the elimination curve - only at a superior level. A comparison of this theoretically calculated function with the concentration actually found shows that also under dynamic conditions tritium is undergoing discrimination because of isotopic effects up to a ratio of I=0.80. The calculation of the ratios R=(OBT)/(HTO) in the continuous culture by comparing the function for OBT with the elimination curve for HTO shows a linear increase of R-values during the experiment. At maximum tritium concentration in the algae, the ratio becomes greater than one, and at the end of the experiment it reaches a value of about 6. However, by extrapolating to a time of 40 half-lives, when the absolute concentration of HTO has already decreased by a factor of 10 -12 , a ratio of about 25 was found. The discrimination enters the estimation of R-values at a constant factor of 0.80. (author)

  15. Response properties of neurons in the cat's putamen during auditory discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Zhenling; Sato, Yu; Qin, Ling

    2015-10-01

    The striatum integrates diverse convergent input and plays a critical role in the goal-directed behaviors. To date, the auditory functions of striatum are less studied. Recently, it was demonstrated that auditory cortico-striatal projections influence behavioral performance during a frequency discrimination task. To reveal the functions of striatal neurons in auditory discrimination, we recorded the single-unit spike activities in the putamen (dorsal striatum) of free-moving cats while performing a Go/No-go task to discriminate the sounds with different modulation rates (12.5 Hz vs. 50 Hz) or envelopes (damped vs. ramped). We found that the putamen neurons can be broadly divided into four groups according to their contributions to sound discrimination. First, 40% of neurons showed vigorous responses synchronized to the sound envelope, and could precisely discriminate different sounds. Second, 18% of neurons showed a high preference of ramped to damped sounds, but no preference for modulation rate. They could only discriminate the change of sound envelope. Third, 27% of neurons rapidly adapted to the sound stimuli, had no ability of sound discrimination. Fourth, 15% of neurons discriminated the sounds dependent on the reward-prediction. Comparing to passively listening condition, the activities of putamen neurons were significantly enhanced by the engagement of the auditory tasks, but not modulated by the cat's behavioral choice. The coexistence of multiple types of neurons suggests that the putamen is involved in the transformation from auditory representation to stimulus-reward association. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Colour discrimination and categorisation in Williams syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farran, Emily K; Cranwell, Matthew B; Alvarez, James; Franklin, Anna

    2013-10-01

    Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with impaired functioning of the dorsal visual stream relative to the ventral visual stream. As such, little attention has been given to ventral stream functions in WS. We investigated colour processing, a predominantly ventral stream function, for the first time in nineteen individuals with Williams syndrome. Colour discrimination was assessed using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test. Colour categorisation was assessed using a match-to-sample test and a colour naming task. A visual search task was also included as a measure of sensitivity to the size of perceptual colour difference. Results showed that individuals with WS have reduced colour discrimination relative to typically developing participants matched for chronological age; performance was commensurate with a typically developing group matched for non-verbal ability. In contrast, categorisation was typical in WS, although there was some evidence that sensitivity to the size of perceptual colour differences was reduced in this group. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Auditory phase and frequency discrimination: a comparison of nine procedures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Creelman, C D; Macmillan, N A

    1979-02-01

    Two auditory discrimination tasks were thoroughly investigated: discrimination of frequency differences from a sinusoidal signal of 200 Hz and discrimination of differences in relative phase of mixed sinusoids of 200 Hz and 400 Hz. For each task psychometric functions were constructed for three observers, using nine different psychophysical measurement procedures. These procedures included yes-no, two-interval forced-choice, and various fixed- and variable-standard designs that investigators have used in recent years. The data showed wide ranges of apparent sensitivity. For frequency discrimination, models derived from signal detection theory for each psychophysical procedure seem to account for the performance differences. For phase discrimination the models do not account for the data. We conclude that for some discriminative continua the assumptions of signal detection theory are appropriate, and underlying sensitivity may be derived from raw data by appropriate transformations. For other continua the models of signal detection theory are probably inappropriate; we speculate that phase might be discriminable only on the basis of comparison or change and suggest some tests of our hypothesis.

  18. Quantifying explainable discrimination and removing illegal discrimination in automated decision making

    KAUST Repository

    Kamiran, Faisal

    2012-11-18

    Recently, the following discrimination-aware classification problem was introduced. Historical data used for supervised learning may contain discrimination, for instance, with respect to gender. The question addressed by discrimination-aware techniques is, given sensitive attribute, how to train discrimination-free classifiers on such historical data that are discriminative, with respect to the given sensitive attribute. Existing techniques that deal with this problem aim at removing all discrimination and do not take into account that part of the discrimination may be explainable by other attributes. For example, in a job application, the education level of a job candidate could be such an explainable attribute. If the data contain many highly educated male candidates and only few highly educated women, a difference in acceptance rates between woman and man does not necessarily reflect gender discrimination, as it could be explained by the different levels of education. Even though selecting on education level would result in more males being accepted, a difference with respect to such a criterion would not be considered to be undesirable, nor illegal. Current state-of-the-art techniques, however, do not take such gender-neutral explanations into account and tend to overreact and actually start reverse discriminating, as we will show in this paper. Therefore, we introduce and analyze the refined notion of conditional non-discrimination in classifier design. We show that some of the differences in decisions across the sensitive groups can be explainable and are hence tolerable. Therefore, we develop methodology for quantifying the explainable discrimination and algorithmic techniques for removing the illegal discrimination when one or more attributes are considered as explanatory. Experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-world classification datasets demonstrates that the new techniques are superior to the old ones in this new context, as they succeed in

  19. Perceived Discrimination in LGBTIQ Discourse: A Typology of Verbal Discrimination

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sol Rojas Lizana

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available New within the field of Discourse Analysis, Perceived Discrimination (PD is the study of discourse that focuses on the perspective of the victims of discrimination. This article explores the experiences of verbal discrimination as reported by eighteen LGBTIQ participants during semi-structured, co-constructed interviews. Data were classified in order to develop a taxonomy of discrimination based on Mellor’s (2003, 2004. This taxonomy foregrounds two types of discrimination: verbal and behavioural. In this paper, I exemplify the forms of verbal discrimination encountered and offer an analysis of the discourse used in the construction of the experiences and of the effects reported. The results show that verbal discrimination is an overt phenomenon and that participants are stressed by the ever present possibility of facing it. Verbal discrimination is mainly triggered by a perceived transgression to the normalised standards of people’s behaviour, movements and look in a heterosexist society. It presents three subtypes: name calling, abuse and remarks. These subtypes are described through the analysis of keywords, effects and expressions (such as faggot, gay, dyke, queer, the pronoun ‘it’, religious comments and other remarks. The type of discrimination used was associated with the level of acquaintance perpetrators have with the experiencers; that is, name calling was used by people unknown to the victims while abuse and remarks by acquaintances and family members. Participants resorted to several discursive strategies to convey their intentions. They used mitigation strategies when wanting to minimize the experience, hedging and repetition were used for emphasis, and to convey urgency and pervasiveness. Metaphorical expressions related to internal or external injuries were also used to express the powerful effect of verbal discrimination on people.

  20. Functional and antioxidant properties of novel snack crackers incorporated with Hibiscus sabdariffa by-product

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zahra S. Ahmed

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The Hibiscus sabdariffa calyxes’ residue (HSR remained after the extraction of beverage is discarded which contributes to environmental pollution. The objective of this study was to explore the suitability of incorporating different amount of HSR (0%, 1.25%, 2.5%, 3.75%, and 5.0% in crackers to enhance dietary fiber and antioxidant content. Physicochemical properties, antioxidants activity, nutritional quality, sensory profile and microstructure properties of samples containing HSR were examined and compared with control crackers. Cracker protein and fat levels decreased as HSR increased from 0.0% to 5% while ash increased. The total dietary fiber DF increased from 3.36% to 8.17% where the highest DF was reached at 5% HSR. The content of phenols increased from 5.99 to 17.57 mg/g and total flavonoid content increased from 49.36 to 104.63 mg/g of crackers incorporated with 5% HSR. DPPH radical scavenging activity increased two fold by increasing HSR up to 5%. HSR containing crackers exhibited darker L values than none/less HSR containing ones. In sensory ranking tests, acceptable crackers with pleasant flavor were obtained by incorporating up to 3.75% HSR into the cracker’s formula. Crackers prepared with 5% HSR received the poorest sensory rating compared to non/less HSR enriched cracker. Scanning electron microscopy (EM images of the prepared crackers revealed marked changes caused by incorporating HSR as upon HSR addition the surface was observed to be scratched, cracker and rougher. Overall results suggest that HSR is a potential functional food ingredient high in fiber content and antioxidants activity that may be processed into flour and used in food applications, such as baked goods.

  1. Computer-aided diagnostic system of diffuse liver diseases using scintiscanning, 1. Application of linear discriminant function

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maeda, T; Ogawa, F; Okabe, H; Murakami, K [Kyoto Prefectural Univ. of Medicine (Japan); Yoshida, S

    1976-07-01

    An approach to an automated diagnostic system for diffuse parenchymal diseases of the liver is made based on hepatic scintigraphy and an electronic computer. The findings of hepatic scintigram with /sup 198/Au-colloid were analysed for 7 items, various patterns of hepatic image on anterior view, various patterns of hepatic image on right lateral view, criteria for visualization of bone marrow on anterior view, criteria for visualization of bone marrow on right lateral view, criteria for visualization of spleen on anterior view, degree of splenomegaly, and value of effective hepatic blood flow (KL-value). Each item was subdivided into several categories. Multivariate discriminant analysis was used for differential diagnosis of liver diseases with a dummy variable, based on the 25 categories of the 7 item on 100 abnormal hepato-scintigrams confirmed histologically, and on 20 normal subjects. This study was 90.0% accurate in normal liver, 81.1% accurate in acute hepatitis, 71.1% in inactive chronic hepatitis, 78.2% in active chronic hepatitis, 93.3% in Ko-type of liver cirrhosis, and 77.8% in the Otu-type of liver cirrhosis. The final diagnostic accuracy was 81.7% in all cases for training group. The accuracy of hepatic scintigraphy was 13% and 19% higher than that of laboratory findings in differentiating two groups of liver cirrhosis and two groups of chronic hepatitis respectively. To obtain maximum diagnostic information for discriminating among etiologies, ranges of discriminant function coefficients in these items were compared with in each group of liver diseases. The most useful diagnostic finding were the configurations of the hepatic images on the anterior and the right lateral views. Visualization of the spleen and the degree of splenomegaly were also useful for differentiation in each group of chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis.

  2. Deficits in recognition, identification, and discrimination of facial emotions in patients with bipolar disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benito, Adolfo; Lahera, Guillermo; Herrera, Sara; Muncharaz, Ramón; Benito, Guillermo; Fernández-Liria, Alberto; Montes, José Manuel

    2013-01-01

    To analyze the recognition, identification, and discrimination of facial emotions in a sample of outpatients with bipolar disorder (BD). Forty-four outpatients with diagnosis of BD and 48 matched control subjects were selected. Both groups were assessed with tests for recognition (Emotion Recognition-40 - ER40), identification (Facial Emotion Identification Test - FEIT), and discrimination (Facial Emotion Discrimination Test - FEDT) of facial emotions, as well as a theory of mind (ToM) verbal test (Hinting Task). Differences between groups were analyzed, controlling the influence of mild depressive and manic symptoms. Patients with BD scored significantly lower than controls on recognition (ER40), identification (FEIT), and discrimination (FEDT) of emotions. Regarding the verbal measure of ToM, a lower score was also observed in patients compared to controls. Patients with mild syndromal depressive symptoms obtained outcomes similar to patients in euthymia. A significant correlation between FEDT scores and global functioning (measured by the Functioning Assessment Short Test, FAST) was found. These results suggest that, even in euthymia, patients with BD experience deficits in recognition, identification, and discrimination of facial emotions, with potential functional implications.

  3. A methodology for incorporating functional bone marrow sparing in IMRT planning for pelvic radiation therapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McGuire, Sarah M.; Menda, Yusuf; Boles Ponto, Laura L.; Gross, Brandie; Juweid, Malik; Bayouth, John E.

    2011-01-01

    Background and purpose: The purpose of this study was to design a radiation therapy treatment planning approach that would spare hematopoietically active bone marrow using [ 18 F]FLT PET imaging. Materials and methods: We have developed an IMRT planning methodology to incorporate functional PET imaging using [ 18 F]FLT scans. Plans were generated for two simulated cervical cancer patients, where pelvic active bone marrow regions were incorporated as avoidance regions based on the ranges: SUV4 ≥ 4; 4 > SUV3 ≥ 3; and 3 > SUV2 ≥ 2. Dose objectives were set to reduce bone marrow volume that received 10 (V 10 ) and 20 (V 20 ) Gy. Results: Active bone marrow regions identified by [ 18 F]FLT with an SUV ≥ 2, SUV ≥ 3, and SUV ≥ 4 represented an average of 43.0%, 15.3%, and 5.8%, respectively of the total osseous pelvis for the two cases studied. Improved dose-volume histograms for all identified bone marrow SUV volumes and decreases in V 10 , and V 20 were achieved without clinically significant changes to PTV or OAR doses. Conclusions: Incorporation of [ 18 F]FLT PET in IMRT planning provides a methodology to reduce radiation dose to active bone marrow without compromising PTV or OAR dose objectives in pelvic malignancies.

  4. Combined discriminative global and generative local models for visual tracking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Liujun; Zhao, Qingjie; Chen, Yanming; Lv, Peng

    2016-03-01

    It is a challenging task to develop an effective visual tracking algorithm due to factors such as pose variation, rotation, and so on. Combined discriminative global and generative local appearance models are proposed to address this problem. Specifically, we develop a compact global object representation by extracting the low-frequency coefficients of the color and texture of the object based on two-dimensional discrete cosine transform. Then, with the global appearance representation, we learn a discriminative metric classifier in an online fashion to differentiate the target object from its background, which is very important to robustly indicate the changes in appearance. Second, we develop a new generative local model that exploits the scale invariant feature transform and its spatial geometric information. To make use of the advantages of the global discriminative model and the generative local model, we incorporate them into Bayesian inference framework. In this framework, the complementary models help the tracker locate the target more accurately. Furthermore, we use different mechanisms to update global and local templates to capture appearance changes. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach performs favorably against state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy.

  5. Incorporation of functionalized gold nanoparticles into nanofibers for enhanced attachment and differentiation of mammalian cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jung Dongju

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Electrospun nanofibers have been widely used as substrata for mammalian cell culture owing to their structural similarity to natural extracellular matrices. Structurally consistent electrospun nanofibers can be produced with synthetic polymers but require chemical modification to graft cell-adhesive molecules to make the nanofibers functional. Development of a facile method of grafting functional molecules on the nanofibers will contribute to the production of diverse cell type-specific nanofiber substrata. Results Small molecules, peptides, and functionalized gold nanoparticles were successfully incorporated with polymethylglutarimide (PMGI nanofibers through electrospinning. The PMGI nanofibers functionalized by the grafted AuNPs, which were labeled with cell-adhesive peptides, enhanced HeLa cell attachment and potentiated cardiomyocyte differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Conclusions PMGI nanofibers can be functionalized simply by co-electrospinning with the grafting materials. In addition, grafting functionalized AuNPs enable high-density localization of the cell-adhesive peptides on the nanofiber. The results of the present study suggest that more cell type-specific synthetic substrata can be fabricated with molecule-doped nanofibers, in which diverse functional molecules are grafted alone or in combination with other molecules at different concentrations.

  6. Pulse-width discriminators

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Budyashov, Yu.G.; Grebenyuk, V.M.; Zinov, V.G.

    1978-01-01

    A pulse duration discriminator is described which is intended for processing signals from multilayer scintillators. The basic elements of the scintillator are: an input gate, a current generator, an integrating capacitor, a Schmidt trigger and an anticoincidence circuit. The basic circuit of the discriminator and its time diagrams explaining its operating are given. The discriminator is based on microcircuits. Pulse duration discrimination threshold changes continuously from 20 to 100 ns, while its amplitude threshold changes within 20 to 100 mV. The temperature instability of discrimination thresholds (both in pulse width and in amplitude) is better than 0.1 per cent/deg C

  7. Discriminative clustering on manifold for adaptive transductive classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Zhao; Jia, Lei; Zhang, Min; Li, Bing; Zhang, Li; Li, Fanzhang

    2017-10-01

    In this paper, we mainly propose a novel adaptive transductive label propagation approach by joint discriminative clustering on manifolds for representing and classifying high-dimensional data. Our framework seamlessly combines the unsupervised manifold learning, discriminative clustering and adaptive classification into a unified model. Also, our method incorporates the adaptive graph weight construction with label propagation. Specifically, our method is capable of propagating label information using adaptive weights over low-dimensional manifold features, which is different from most existing studies that usually predict the labels and construct the weights in the original Euclidean space. For transductive classification by our formulation, we first perform the joint discriminative K-means clustering and manifold learning to capture the low-dimensional nonlinear manifolds. Then, we construct the adaptive weights over the learnt manifold features, where the adaptive weights are calculated through performing the joint minimization of the reconstruction errors over features and soft labels so that the graph weights can be joint-optimal for data representation and classification. Using the adaptive weights, we can easily estimate the unknown labels of samples. After that, our method returns the updated weights for further updating the manifold features. Extensive simulations on image classification and segmentation show that our proposed algorithm can deliver the state-of-the-art performance on several public datasets. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Going Beyond the Norm: The Case for Incorporating Evaluative Mediation into Department of Defense Employment Discrimination Complaints

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-03-01

    System: Investigation of Equal Employment Opportunity Complaints (2015). 10 Protected information can include social security numbers, date of birth...complaint based on illegal discrimination with the Equal Opportunity Office. Evaluative mediation involves having a mediator with expertise in labor and...employment law evaluate the complaint’s strengths and weaknesses and help the parties reach resolution based on this evaluation. The Equal Employment

  9. Colour discrimination and categorisation in Williams syndrome

    OpenAIRE

    Farran, E. K.; Cranwell, M. B.; Alvarez, J.; Franklin, A.

    2013-01-01

    Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with impaired functioning of the dorsal visual stream relative to the ventral visual stream. As such, little attention has been given to ventral stream functions in WS. We investigated colour processing, a predominantly ventral stream function, for the first time in nineteen individuals with Williams syndrome. Colour discrimination was assessed using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test. Colour categorisation was assessed using a match-to-sample ...

  10. Feasibility of incorporating functionally relevant virtual rehabilitation in sub-acute stroke care: perception of patients and clinicians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demers, Marika; Chan Chun Kong, Daniel; Levin, Mindy F

    2018-03-11

    To determine user satisfaction and safety of incorporating a low-cost virtual rehabilitation intervention as an adjunctive therapeutic option for cognitive-motor upper limb rehabilitation in individuals with sub-acute stroke. A low-cost upper limb virtual rehabilitation application incorporating realistic functionally-relevant unimanual and bimanual tasks, specifically designed for cognitive-motor rehabilitation was developed for patients with sub-acute stroke. Clinicians and individuals with stroke interacted with the intervention for 15-20 or 20-45 minutes, respectively. The study had a mixed-methods convergent parallel design that included a focus group interview with clinicians working in a stroke program and semi-structured interviews and standardized assessments (Borg Perceived Exertion Scale, Short Feedback Questionnaire) for participants with sub-acute stroke undergoing rehabilitation. The occurrence of adverse events was also noted. Three main themes emerged from the clinician focus group and patient interviews: Perceived usefulness in rehabilitation, satisfaction with the virtual reality intervention and aspects to improve. All clinicians and the majority of participants with stroke were highly satisfied with the intervention and perceived its usefulness to decrease arm motor impairment during functional tasks. No participants experienced major adverse events. Incorporation of this type of functional activity game-based virtual reality intervention in the sub-acute phase of rehabilitation represents a way to transfer skills learned early in the clinical setting to real world situations. This type of intervention may lead to better integration of the upper limb into everyday activities. Implications for Rehabilitation • Use of a cognitive-motor low-cost virtual reality intervention designed to remediate arm motor impairments in sub-acute stroke is feasible, safe and perceived as useful by therapists and patients for stroke rehabilitation.

  11. Incorporating trnH-psbA to the core DNA barcodes improves significantly species discrimination within southern African Combretaceae

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jephris Gere

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies indicate that the discriminatory power of the core DNA barcodes (rbcLa + matK for land plants may have been overestimated since their performance have been tested only on few closely related species. In this study we focused mainly on how the addition of complementary barcodes (nrITS and trnH-psbA to the core barcodes will affect the performance of the core barcodes in discriminating closely related species from family to section levels. In general, we found that the core barcodes performed poorly compared to the various combinations tested. Using multiple criteria, we finally advocated for the use of the core + trnH-psbA as potential DNA barcode for the family Combretaceae at least in southern Africa. Our results also indicate that the success of DNA barcoding in discriminating closely related species may be related to evolutionary and possibly the biogeographic histories of the taxonomic group tested.

  12. TH-A-9A-04: Incorporating Liver Functionality in Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu, V; Epelman, M; Feng, M; Cao, Y; Wang, H; Romeijn, E; Matuszak, M

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: Liver SBRT patients have both variable pretreatment liver function (e.g., due to degree of cirrhosis and/or prior treatments) and sensitivity to radiation, leading to high variability in potential liver toxicity with similar doses. This work aims to explicitly incorporate liver perfusion into treatment planning to redistribute dose to preserve well-functioning areas without compromising target coverage. Methods: Voxel-based liver perfusion, a measure of functionality, was computed from dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI. Two optimization models with different cost functions subject to the same dose constraints (e.g., minimum target EUD and maximum critical structure EUDs) were compared. The cost functions minimized were EUD (standard model) and functionality-weighted EUD (functional model) to the liver. The resulting treatment plans delivering the same target EUD were compared with respect to their DVHs, their dose wash difference, the average dose delivered to voxels of a particular perfusion level, and change in number of high-/low-functioning voxels receiving a particular dose. Two-dimensional synthetic and three-dimensional clinical examples were studied. Results: The DVHs of all structures of plans from each model were comparable. In contrast, in plans obtained with the functional model, the average dose delivered to high-/low-functioning voxels was lower/higher than in plans obtained with its standard counterpart. The number of high-/low-functioning voxels receiving high/low dose was lower in the plans that considered perfusion in the cost function than in the plans that did not. Redistribution of dose can be observed in the dose wash differences. Conclusion: Liver perfusion can be used during treatment planning potentially to minimize the risk of toxicity during liver SBRT, resulting in better global liver function. The functional model redistributes dose in the standard model from higher to lower functioning voxels, while achieving the same target EUD

  13. Discrimination, work and health in immigrant populations in Spain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agudelo-Suárez, Andrés; Gil-González, Diana; Ronda-Pérez, Elena; Porthé, Victoria; Paramio-Pérez, Gema; García, Ana M; Garí, Aitana

    2009-05-01

    One of the most important social phenomena in the global context is the flow of immigration from developing countries, motivated by economic and employment related issues. Discrimination can be approached as a health risk factor within the immigrant population's working environment, especially for those immigrants at greater risk from social exclusion and marginalisation. The aim of this study is to research perceptions of discrimination and the specific relationship between discrimination in the workplace and health among Spain's immigrant population. A qualitative study was performed by means of 84 interviews and 12 focus groups held with immigrant workers in five cities in Spain receiving a large influx of immigrants (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Huelva), covering representative immigrant communities in Spain (Romanians, Moroccans, Ecuadorians, Colombians and Sub-Saharan Africans). Discourse narrative content analysis was performed using pre-established categories and gradually incorporating other emerging categories from the immigrant interviewees themselves. The participants reported instances of discrimination in their community and working life, characterised by experiences of racism, mistreatment and precarious working conditions in comparison to the Spanish-born population. They also talked about limitations in terms of accessible occupations (mainly construction, the hotel and restaurant trade, domestic service and agriculture), and described major difficulties accessing other types of work (for example public administration). They also identified political and legal structural barriers related with social institutions. Experiences of discrimination can affect their mental health and are decisive factors regarding access to healthcare services. Our results suggest the need to adopt integration policies in both the countries of origin and the host country, to acknowledge labour and social rights, and to conduct further research into individual

  14. Object recognition with hierarchical discriminant saliency networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sunhyoung eHan

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The benefits of integrating attention and object recognition are investigated. While attention is frequently modeled as pre-processor for recognition, we investigate the hypothesis that attention is an intrinsic component of recognition and vice-versa. This hypothesis is tested with a recognitionmodel, the hierarchical discriminant saliency network (HDSN, whose layers are top-down saliency detectors, tuned for a visual class according to the principles of discriminant saliency. The HDSN has two possible implementations. In a biologically plausible implementation, all layers comply with the standard neurophysiological model of visual cortex, with sub-layers of simple and complex units that implement a combination of filtering, divisive normalization, pooling, and non-linearities. In a neuralnetwork implementation, all layers are convolutional and implement acombination of filtering, rectification, and pooling. The rectificationis performed with a parametric extension of the now popular rectified linearunits (ReLUs, whose parameters can be tuned for the detection of targetobject classes. This enables a number of functional enhancementsover neural network models that lack a connection to saliency, including optimal feature denoising mechanisms for recognition, modulation ofsaliency responses by the discriminant power of the underlying features,and the ability to detect both feature presence and absence.In either implementation, each layer has a precise statistical interpretation, and all parameters are tuned by statistical learning. Each saliency detection layer learns more discriminant saliency templates than its predecessors and higher layers have larger pooling fields. This enables the HDSN to simultaneously achieve high selectivity totarget object classes and invariance. The resulting performance demonstrates benefits for all the functional enhancements of the HDSN.

  15. The effects of functional magnetic nanotubes with incorporated nerve growth factor in neuronal differentiation of PC12 cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xie Jining; Chen Linfeng; Varadan, Vijay K; Yancey, Justin; Srivatsan, Malathi

    2008-01-01

    In this in vitro study the efficiency of magnetic nanotubes to bind with nerve growth factor (NGF) and the ability of NGF-incorporated magnetic nanotubes to release the bound NGF are investigated using rat pheochromocytoma cells (PC12 cells). It is found that functional magnetic nanotubes with NGF incorporation enabled the differentiation of PC12 cells into neurons exhibiting growth cones and neurite outgrowth. Microscope observations show that filopodia extending from neuron growth cones were in close proximity to the NGF-incorporated magnetic nanotubes, at times appearing to extend towards or into them. These results show that magnetic nanotubes can be used as a delivery vehicle for NGF and thus may be exploited in attempts to treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease with neurotrophins. Further neurite outgrowth can be controlled by manipulating magnetic nanotubes with external magnetic fields, thus helping in directed regeneration

  16. Type I-E CRISPR-cas systems discriminate target from non-target DNA through base pairing-independent PAM recognition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Westra, E.R.; Semenova, E.; Datsenko, K.A.; Jackson, R.N.; Wiedenheft, B.; Severinov, K.; Brouns, S.J.J.

    2013-01-01

    Discriminating self and non-self is a universal requirement of immune systems. Adaptive immune systems in prokaryotes are centered around repetitive loci called CRISPRs (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat), into which invader DNA fragments are incorporated. CRISPR transcripts

  17. Hard and soft age discrimination: the dual nature of workplace discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stypinska, Justyna; Turek, Konrad

    2017-03-01

    The paper concentrates on the problem of age discrimination in the labour market and the way it can be conceptualised and measured in a multi-disciplinary way. The approach proposed here combines two understandings of age discrimination-a sociological and legal one, what allows for a fuller and expanded understanding of ageism in the workplace. At the heart of the study is a survey carried out in Poland with a sample of 1000 men and women aged 45-65 years. The study takes a deeper and innovative look into the issue of age discrimination in employment. Confirmatory factor analysis with WLSMV estimation and logistic regressions were used to test the hypotheses. The study shows that age discrimination in labour market can take on different forms: hard and soft, where the hard type of age discrimination mirrors the legally prohibited types of behaviours and those which relate to the actual decisions of employers which can impact on the employee's career development. The soft discrimination corresponds with those occurrences, which are not inscribed in the legal system per se, are occurring predominantly in the interpersonal sphere, but can nevertheless have negative consequences. Soft discrimination was experienced more often (28.6% of respondents) than hard discrimination (15.7%) with higher occurrences among women, persons in precarious job situation or residents of urban areas. The role of education was not confirmed to influence the levels of perceived age discrimination.

  18. Quantifying explainable discrimination and removing illegal discrimination in automated decision making

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kamiran, F.; Zliobaite, I.; Calders, T.G.K.

    2013-01-01

    Recently, the following discrimination-aware classification problem was introduced. Historical data used for supervised learning may contain discrimination, for instance, with respect to gender. The question addressed by discrimination-aware techniques is, given sensitive attribute, how to train

  19. Systemic lipopolysaccharide administration impairs retrieval of context-object discrimination, but not spatial, memory: Evidence for selective disruption of specific hippocampus-dependent memory functions during acute neuroinflammation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Czerniawski, Jennifer; Miyashita, Teiko; Lewandowski, Gail; Guzowski, John F

    2015-02-01

    Neuroinflammation is implicated in impairments in neuronal function and cognition that arise with aging, trauma, and/or disease. Therefore, understanding the underlying basis of the effect of immune system activation on neural function could lead to therapies for treating cognitive decline. Although neuroinflammation is widely thought to preferentially impair hippocampus-dependent memory, data on the effects of cytokines on cognition are mixed. One possible explanation for these inconsistent results is that cytokines may disrupt specific neural processes underlying some forms of memory but not others. In an earlier study, we tested the effect of systemic administration of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on retrieval of hippocampus-dependent context memory and neural circuit function in CA3 and CA1 (Czerniawski and Guzowski, 2014). Paralleling impairment in context discrimination memory, we observed changes in neural circuit function consistent with disrupted pattern separation function. In the current study we tested the hypothesis that acute neuroinflammation selectively disrupts memory retrieval in tasks requiring hippocampal pattern separation processes. Male Sprague-Dawley rats given LPS systemically prior to testing exhibited intact performance in tasks that do not require hippocampal pattern separation processes: novel object recognition and spatial memory in the water maze. By contrast, memory retrieval in a task thought to require hippocampal pattern separation, context-object discrimination, was strongly impaired in LPS-treated rats in the absence of any gross effects on exploratory activity or motivation. These data show that LPS administration does not impair memory retrieval in all hippocampus-dependent tasks, and support the hypothesis that acute neuroinflammation impairs context discrimination memory via disruption of pattern separation processes in hippocampus. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Optimizing relational algebra operations using generic equivalence discriminators and lazy products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Henglein, Fritz

    2010-01-01

    We show how to efficiently evaluate generic map-filter-product queries, generalizations of select-project-join (SPJ) queries in re- lational algebra, based on a combination of two novel techniques: generic discrimination-based joins and lazy (formal) products. Discrimination-based joins are based...... that discriminators can be constructed generically (by structural recursion on equivalence expressions), purely func- tionally, and efficiently (worst-case linear time). The array-based basic multiset discrimination algorithm of Cai and Paige (1995) provides a base discriminator that is both asymptotically and prac...... on relational algebra equalities, without need for a query preprocessing phase. They require no indexes and behave purely functionally. They can be considered a form of symbolic execution of set expressions that automate and encapsulate dynamic program transformation of such expressions and lead to asymptotic...

  1. Social Status Correlates of Reporting Racial Discrimination and Gender Discrimination among Racially Diverse Women

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ro, Annie E.; Choi, Kyung-Hee

    2009-01-01

    The growing body of research on discrimination and health indicates a deleterious effect of discrimination on various health outcomes. However, less is known about the sociodemographic correlates of reporting racial discrimination and gender discrimination among racially diverse women. We examined the associations of social status characteristics with lifetime experiences of racial discrimination and gender discrimination using a racially-diverse sample of 754 women attending family planning clinics in Northern California (11.4% African American, 16.8% Latina, 10.1% Asian and 61.7% Caucasian). A multivariate analysis revealed that race, financial difficulty and marital status were significantly correlated with higher reports of racial discrimination, while race, education, financial difficulty and nativity were significantly correlated with gender discrimination scores. Our findings suggest that the social patterning of perceiving racial discrimination is somewhat different from that of gender discrimination. This has implications in the realm of discrimination research and applied interventions, as different forms of discrimination may have unique covariates that should be accounted for in research analysis or program design. PMID:19485231

  2. Social status correlates of reporting gender discrimination and racial discrimination among racially diverse women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ro, Annie E; Choi, Kyung-Hee

    2009-01-01

    The growing body of research on discrimination and health indicates a deleterious effect of discrimination on various health outcomes. However, less is known about the sociodemographic correlates of reporting racial discrimination and gender discrimination among racially diverse women. We examined the associations of social status characteristics with lifetime experiences of racial discrimination and gender discrimination using a racially-diverse sample of 754 women attending family planning clinics in North California (11.4% African American, 16.8% Latina, 10.1% Asian and 61.7% Caucasian). A multivariate analysis revealed that race, financial difficulty and marital status were significantly correlated with higher reports of racial discrimination, while race, education, financial difficulty and nativity were significantly correlated with gender discrimination scores. Our findings suggest that the social patterning of perceiving racial discrimination is somewhat different from that of gender discrimination. This has implications in the realm of discrimination research and applied interventions, as different forms of discrimination may have unique covariates that should be accounted for in research analysis or program design.

  3. Multi-level discriminative dictionary learning with application to large scale image classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Li; Sun, Gang; Huang, Qingming; Wang, Shuhui; Lin, Zhouchen; Wu, Enhua

    2015-10-01

    The sparse coding technique has shown flexibility and capability in image representation and analysis. It is a powerful tool in many visual applications. Some recent work has shown that incorporating the properties of task (such as discrimination for classification task) into dictionary learning is effective for improving the accuracy. However, the traditional supervised dictionary learning methods suffer from high computation complexity when dealing with large number of categories, making them less satisfactory in large scale applications. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-level discriminative dictionary learning method and apply it to large scale image classification. Our method takes advantage of hierarchical category correlation to encode multi-level discriminative information. Each internal node of the category hierarchy is associated with a discriminative dictionary and a classification model. The dictionaries at different layers are learnt to capture the information of different scales. Moreover, each node at lower layers also inherits the dictionary of its parent, so that the categories at lower layers can be described with multi-scale information. The learning of dictionaries and associated classification models is jointly conducted by minimizing an overall tree loss. The experimental results on challenging data sets demonstrate that our approach achieves excellent accuracy and competitive computation cost compared with other sparse coding methods for large scale image classification.

  4. STATIC BALANCE MEASUREMENTS IN STABLE AND UNSTABLE CONDITIONS DO NOT DISCRIMINATE GROUPS OF YOUNG ADULTS ASSESSED BY THE FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT SCREEN™ (FMS™).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trindade, Matheus A; de Toledo, Aline Martins; Cardoso, Jefferson Rosa; Souza, Igor Eduardo; Dos Santos Mendes, Felipe Augusto; Santana, Luisiane A; Carregaro, Rodrigo Luiz

    2017-11-01

    The Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™) has been the focus of recent research related to movement profiling and injury prediction. However, there is a paucity of studies examining the associations between physical performance tasks such as balance and the FMS™ screening system. The purpose of this study was to compare measures of static balance in stable and unstable conditions between different groups divided by FMS™ scores. A secondary purpose was to discern if balance indices discriminate the groups divided by FMS™ scores. Cross-sectional study. Fifty-seven physically active subjects (25 men and 32 women; mean age of 22.9 ± 3.1 yrs) participated. The outcome was unilateral stance balance indices, composed by: Anteroposterior Index; Medial-lateral Index, and Overall Balance Index in stable and unstable conditions, as provided by the Biodex balance platform. Subjects were dichotomized into two groups, according to a FMS™ cut-off score of 14: FMS1 (score > 14) and FMS2 (score ≤ 14). The independent Students t-test was used to verify differences in balance indices between FMS1 and FMS2 groups. A discriminant analysis was applied in order to identify which of the balance indices would adequately discriminate the FMS™ groups. Comparisons between FMS1 and FMS2 groups in the stable and unstable conditions demonstrated a higher unstable Anteroposterior index for FMS2 (p=0.017). No significant differences were found for other comparisons (p>0.05). The indices did not discriminate the FMS™ groups ( p  > 0.05). The balance indices adopted in this study were not useful as a parameter for identification and discrimination of healthy subjects assessed by the FMS™. 2c.

  5. Handling conditional discrimination

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zliobaite, I.; Kamiran, F.; Calders, T.G.K.

    2011-01-01

    Historical data used for supervised learning may contain discrimination. We study how to train classifiers on such data, so that they are discrimination free with respect to a given sensitive attribute, e.g., gender. Existing techniques that deal with this problem aim at removing all discrimination

  6. Racial Discrimination: A Continuum of Violence Exposure for Children of Color

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanders-Phillips, Kathy

    2009-01-01

    This article reviews and examines findings on the impact of racial discrimination on the development and functioning of children of color in the US. Based on current definitions of violence and child maltreatment, exposure to racial discrimination should be considered as a form of violence that can significantly impact child outcomes and limit the…

  7. Nanoporous microbead supported bilayers: stability, physical characterization, and incorporation of functional transmembrane proteins.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Davis, Ryan W. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Brozik, James A. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Brozik, Susan Marie; Cox, Jason M. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Lopez, Gabriel P. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Barrick, Todd A. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Flores, Adrean (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM)

    2007-03-01

    The introduction of functional transmembrane proteins into supported bilayer-based biomimetic systems presents a significant challenge for biophysics. Among the various methods for producing supported bilayers, liposomal fusion offers a versatile method for the introduction of membrane proteins into supported bilayers on a variety of substrates. In this study, the properties of protein containing unilamellar phosphocholine lipid bilayers on nanoporous silica microspheres are investigated. The effects of the silica substrate, pore structure, and the substrate curvature on the stability of the membrane and the functionality of the membrane protein are determined. Supported bilayers on porous silica microspheres show a significant increase in surface area on surfaces with structures in excess of 10 nm as well as an overall decrease in stability resulting from increasing pore size and curvature. Comparison of the liposomal and detergent-mediated introduction of purified bacteriorhodopsin (bR) and the human type 3 serotonin receptor (5HT3R) are investigated focusing on the resulting protein function, diffusion, orientation, and incorporation efficiency. In both cases, functional proteins are observed; however, the reconstitution efficiency and orientation selectivity are significantly enhanced through detergent-mediated protein reconstitution. The results of these experiments provide a basis for bulk ionic and fluorescent dye-based compartmentalization assays as well as single-molecule optical and single-channel electrochemical interrogation of transmembrane proteins in a biomimetic platform.

  8. Discriminability and dimensionality effects in visual search for featural conjunctions: a functional pop-out.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dehaene, S

    1989-07-01

    Treisman and Gelade's (1980) feature-integration theory of attention states that a scene must be serially scanned before the objects in it can be accurately perceived. Is serial scanning compatible with the speed observed in the perception of real-world scenes? Most real scenes consist of many more dimensions (color, size, shape, depth, etc.) than those generally found in search paradigms. Furthermore, real objects differ from each other along many of these dimensions. The present experiment assessed the influence of the total number of dimensions and target/distractor discriminability (the number of dimensions that suffice to separate a target from distractors) on search times for a conjunction of features. Search was always found to be serial. However, for the most discriminable targets, search rate was so fast that search times were in the same range as pop-out detection times. Apparently, greater discriminability enables subjects to direct attention at a faster rate and at only a fraction of the items in a scene.

  9. Social Status Correlates of Reporting Racial Discrimination and Gender Discrimination among Racially Diverse Women

    OpenAIRE

    Ro, Annie E.; Choi, Kyung-Hee

    2009-01-01

    The growing body of research on discrimination and health indicates a deleterious effect of discrimination on various health outcomes. However, less is known about the sociodemographic correlates of reporting racial discrimination and gender discrimination among racially diverse women. We examined the associations of social status characteristics with lifetime experiences of racial discrimination and gender discrimination using a racially-diverse sample of 754 women attending family planning ...

  10. Racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and substance abuse among Latina/os nationwide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otiniano Verissimo, Angie Denisse; Gee, Gilbert C; Ford, Chandra L; Iguchi, Martin Y

    2014-01-01

    This study investigates the relationship between discrimination and substance abuse among Latina/os, and further examines whether this relationship differs by gender and type of discrimination. Analyses focus on the Latina/o respondents (n = 1,039 men; n = 1,273 women) from the National Latino and Asian American Study carried out from 2002-2003. Outcomes were alcohol abuse and drug abuse measured using DSM-IV definitions and criteria. Additional covariates included immigrant characteristics and demographics. Analyses were completed using gender-stratified multinomial logistic regression. Men reported more discrimination (39.6% vs. 30.3%) and had higher prevalence of alcohol abuse (16.5% vs. 4.5%) and drug abuse (9.5% vs. 2.3%) than women. Discrimination was significantly associated with increased risk of alcohol abuse for women and increased risk of drug abuse for men. Men and women also varied in the types of discrimination (e.g., racial vs. gender) reported, and in the associations between these types of discrimination and substance abuse. These data indicate that discrimination is associated with different substance abuse outcomes between genders. Future research should consider the mechanisms that explain these differences.

  11.  Optimizing relational algebra operations using discrimination-based joins and lazy products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Henglein, Fritz

    We show how to implement in-memory execution of the core re- lational algebra operations of projection, selection and cross-product eciently, using discrimination-based joins and lazy products. We introduce the notion of (partitioning) discriminator, which par- titions a list of values according...... to a specied equivalence relation on keys the values are associated with. We show how discriminators can be dened generically, purely functionally, and eciently (worst-case linear time) on top of the array-based basic multiset discrimination algorithm of Cai and Paige (1995). Discriminators provide the basis...... the selection operation to recognize on the y whenever it is applied to a cross-product, in which case it can choose an ecient discrimination-based equijoin implementation. The techniques subsume most of the optimization techniques based on relational algebra equalities, without need for a query preprocessing...

  12. The scope of the principle of non-discrimination of people with disability in the field of higher education in Colombia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kelly Viviana Aristizábal Gómez

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to identify the scope of the principles of non-discrimination of people with disabilities in the field of higher education in Colombia, based on a thorough analysis that starts specifying the scope and content of the principle of non-discrimination, continues with the characterization of the concept of disability and finally, develops the incorporation of the international rules in the Colombian context and the appropriate discussion about an inclusive higher education.

  13. Acute Moderate Exercise Improves Mnemonic Discrimination in Young Adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suwabe, Kazuya; Hyodo, Kazuki; Byun, Kyeongho; Ochi, Genta; Yassa, Michael A.; Soya, Hideaki

    2018-01-01

    Increasing evidence suggests that regular moderate exercise increases neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus and improves memory functions in both humans and animals. The DG is known to play a role in pattern separation, which is the ability to discriminate among similar experiences, a fundamental component of episodic memory. While long-term voluntary exercise improves pattern separation, there is little evidence of alterations in DG function after an acute exercise session. Our previous studies showing acute moderate exercise-enhanced DG activation in rats, and acute moderate exercise-enhanced prefrontal activation and executive function in humans, led us to postulate that acute moderate exercise may also activate the hippocampus, including more specifically the DG, thus improving pattern separation. We thus investigated the effects of a 10-min moderate exercise (50% V̇O2peak) session, the recommended intensity for health promotion, on mnemonic discrimination (a behavioral index of pattern separation) in young adults. An acute bout of moderate exercise improved mnemonic discrimination performance in high similarity lures. These results support our hypothesis that acute moderate exercise improves DG-mediated pattern separation in humans, proposing a useful human acute-exercise model for analyzing the neuronal substrate underlying acute and regular exercise-enhanced episodic memory based on the hippocampus. PMID:27997992

  14. LABOR DISCRIMINATION IN BULGARIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vyara Slavyanska

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Labor discrimination is a phenomenon with very serious social and economic consequences, which has increased actuality and importance in Bulgaria nowadays. Because of the high price of discrimination, building effective anti-discrimination legislation occupies a special place in the policy of the European Union. Despite the European directives, the presence of anti-discrimination legislation and the broadly declared anti-discrimination inclinations in our country, these are absolutely not enough for providing environment of equality, with a climate of respect and tolerance to the differences. It turns out that certain groups are definitely victims of labor discrimination. In this connection the present article consecutively identifies these groups, as well as the reasons for their discrimination, underlining the necessity and benefits of the integration of the different.

  15. Neural network consistent empirical physical formula construction for neutron–gamma discrimination in gamma ray tracking

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yildiz, Nihat; Akkoyun, Serkan

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: ► Detector responses in neutron–gamma discrimination were estimated by neural networks. ► Novel consistent neural network empirical physical formulas (EPFs) were constructed for detector responses. ► The EPFs are of explicit mathematical functional form. ► The EPFs can be used to derive various physical functions relevant to neutron–gamma discrimination in gamma ray tracking. -- Abstract: Gamma ray tracking is an efficient detection technique in studying exotic nuclei which lies far from beta stability line. To achieve very powerful and extraordinary resolution ability, new detectors based on gamma ray tracking are currently being developed. To reach this achievement, the neutron–gamma discrimination in these detectors is also an important task. In this paper, by suitable layered feedforward neural networks (LFNNs), we have constructed novel and consistent empirical physical formulas (EPFs) for some highly nonlinear detector counts measured in neutron–gamma discrimination. The detector counts data used in the discrimination was actually borrowed from our previous paper. The counts used here had been originally measured versus the following parameters: energy deposited in the first interaction points, difference in the incoming direction of initial gamma rays, and finally figure of merit values of the clusters determined by tracking. The LFNN–EPFs are of explicit mathematical functional form. Therefore, by various suitable operations of mathematical analysis, these LFNN–EPFs can be used to derivate further physical functions which might be potentially relevant to neutron–gamma discrimination performance of gamma ray tracking.

  16. Stimulus familiarity modulates functional connectivity of the perirhinal cortex and anterior hippocampus during visual discrimination of faces and objects

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLelland, Victoria C.; Chan, David; Ferber, Susanne; Barense, Morgan D.

    2014-01-01

    Recent research suggests that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is involved in perception as well as in declarative memory. Amnesic patients with focal MTL lesions and semantic dementia patients showed perceptual deficits when discriminating faces and objects. Interestingly, these two patient groups showed different profiles of impairment for familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. For MTL amnesics, the use of familiar relative to unfamiliar stimuli improved discrimination performance. By contrast, patients with semantic dementia—a neurodegenerative condition associated with anterolateral temporal lobe damage—showed no such facilitation from familiar stimuli. Given that the two patient groups had highly overlapping patterns of damage to the perirhinal cortex, hippocampus, and temporal pole, the neuroanatomical substrates underlying their performance discrepancy were unclear. Here, we addressed this question with a multivariate reanalysis of the data presented by Barense et al. (2011), using functional connectivity to examine how stimulus familiarity affected the broader networks with which the perirhinal cortex, hippocampus, and temporal poles interact. In this study, healthy participants were scanned while they performed an odd-one-out perceptual task involving familiar and novel faces or objects. Seed-based analyses revealed that functional connectivity of the right perirhinal cortex and right anterior hippocampus was modulated by the degree of stimulus familiarity. For familiar relative to unfamiliar faces and objects, both right perirhinal cortex and right anterior hippocampus showed enhanced functional correlations with anterior/lateral temporal cortex, temporal pole, and medial/lateral parietal cortex. These findings suggest that in order to benefit from stimulus familiarity, it is necessary to engage not only the perirhinal cortex and hippocampus, but also a network of regions known to represent semantic information. PMID:24624075

  17. Object recognition with hierarchical discriminant saliency networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Sunhyoung; Vasconcelos, Nuno

    2014-01-01

    The benefits of integrating attention and object recognition are investigated. While attention is frequently modeled as a pre-processor for recognition, we investigate the hypothesis that attention is an intrinsic component of recognition and vice-versa. This hypothesis is tested with a recognition model, the hierarchical discriminant saliency network (HDSN), whose layers are top-down saliency detectors, tuned for a visual class according to the principles of discriminant saliency. As a model of neural computation, the HDSN has two possible implementations. In a biologically plausible implementation, all layers comply with the standard neurophysiological model of visual cortex, with sub-layers of simple and complex units that implement a combination of filtering, divisive normalization, pooling, and non-linearities. In a convolutional neural network implementation, all layers are convolutional and implement a combination of filtering, rectification, and pooling. The rectification is performed with a parametric extension of the now popular rectified linear units (ReLUs), whose parameters can be tuned for the detection of target object classes. This enables a number of functional enhancements over neural network models that lack a connection to saliency, including optimal feature denoising mechanisms for recognition, modulation of saliency responses by the discriminant power of the underlying features, and the ability to detect both feature presence and absence. In either implementation, each layer has a precise statistical interpretation, and all parameters are tuned by statistical learning. Each saliency detection layer learns more discriminant saliency templates than its predecessors and higher layers have larger pooling fields. This enables the HDSN to simultaneously achieve high selectivity to target object classes and invariance. The performance of the network in saliency and object recognition tasks is compared to those of models from the biological and

  18. Ensemble-based computational approach discriminates functional activity of p53 cancer and rescue mutants.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Özlem Demir

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available The tumor suppressor protein p53 can lose its function upon single-point missense mutations in the core DNA-binding domain ("cancer mutants". Activity can be restored by second-site suppressor mutations ("rescue mutants". This paper relates the functional activity of p53 cancer and rescue mutants to their overall molecular dynamics (MD, without focusing on local structural details. A novel global measure of protein flexibility for the p53 core DNA-binding domain, the number of clusters at a certain RMSD cutoff, was computed by clustering over 0.7 µs of explicitly solvated all-atom MD simulations. For wild-type p53 and a sample of p53 cancer or rescue mutants, the number of clusters was a good predictor of in vivo p53 functional activity in cell-based assays. This number-of-clusters (NOC metric was strongly correlated (r(2 = 0.77 with reported values of experimentally measured ΔΔG protein thermodynamic stability. Interpreting the number of clusters as a measure of protein flexibility: (i p53 cancer mutants were more flexible than wild-type protein, (ii second-site rescue mutations decreased the flexibility of cancer mutants, and (iii negative controls of non-rescue second-site mutants did not. This new method reflects the overall stability of the p53 core domain and can discriminate which second-site mutations restore activity to p53 cancer mutants.

  19. Set discrimination of quantum states

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Shengyu; Ying Mingsheng

    2002-01-01

    We introduce a notion of set discrimination, which is an interesting extension of quantum state discrimination. A state is secretly chosen from a number of quantum states, which are partitioned into some disjoint sets. A set discrimination is required to identify which set the given state belongs to. Several essential problems are addressed in this paper, including the condition of perfect set discrimination, unambiguous set discrimination, and in the latter case, the efficiency of the discrimination. This generalizes some important results on quantum state discrimination in the literature. A combination of state and set discrimination and the efficiency are also studied

  20. Modulation of the effective work function of a TiN metal gate for NMOS requisition with Al incorporation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Han Kai; Ma Xueli; Yang Hong; Wang Wenwu

    2013-01-01

    The effect of Al incorporation on the effective work function (EWF) of TiN metal gate was systematically investigated. Metal—oxide—semiconductor (MOS) capacitors with W/TiN/Al/TiN gate stacks were used to fulfill this purpose. Different thickness ratios of Al to TiN and different post metal annealing (PMA) conditions were employed. Significant shift of work function towards to Si conduction band was observed, which was suitable for NMOS and the magnitude of shift depends on the processing conditions. (semiconductor technology)

  1. Discriminant analysis on the treatment results of interstitial radium tongue implants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hoshina, Masao; Shibuya, Hitoshi; Horiuchi, Jun-Ichi; Matsubara, Sho; Suzuki, Soji; Takeda, Masamune

    1989-01-01

    Discriminant analysis was carried out for 48 tongue cancer patients who were treated with radium single-plane implantation. The 48 patients were grouped into 32 successfully cured without complications, five successfully cured with complications, six successfully cured but requiring additional boost therapy and five with local recurrence. To evaluate the relation between the dose distribution and the local treatment results, the analysis was based on a volume-dose relationship. The functions introduced by this discriminant analysis were linear, and the parameters used were modal dose, average dose and shape factors of histograms. Each group of treatment results had a correction rate of >80%, except for the successfully cured group with ulcers. The discriminant functions were useful as an index to obtain a final clinical treatment result at the early time of implantation, and these functions could be used as a criterion for the optimal treatment of tongue carcinoma. We were also able to recognize the limitation of the actual arrangement of sources in the single-plane implant. (author)

  2. Discrimination and delusional ideation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janssen, I; Hanssen, M; Bak, M; Bijl, R V; de Graaf, R; Vollebergh, W; McKenzie, K; van Os, J

    2003-01-01

    In the UK and The Netherlands, people with high rates of psychosis are chronically exposed to discrimination. To test whether perceived discrimination is associated longitudinally with onset of psychosis. A 3-year prospective study of cohorts with no history of psychosis and differential rates of reported discrimination on the basis of age, gender, disability, appearance, skin colour or ethnicity and sexual orientation was conducted in the Dutch general population (n=4076). The main outcome was onset of psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations). The rate of delusional ideation was 0.5% (n=19) in those who did not report discrimination, 0.9% (n=4) in those who reported discrimination in one domain, and 2.7% (n=3) in those who reported discrimination in more than one domain (exact P=0.027). This association remained after adjustment for possible confounders. No association was found between baseline discrimination and onset of hallucinatory experiences. Perceived discrimination may induce delusional ideation and thus contribute to the high observed rates of psychotic disorder in exposed minority populations.

  3. Surface micromachined counter-meshing gears discrimination device

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polosky, Marc A.; Garcia, Ernest J.; Allen, James J.

    2000-12-12

    A surface micromachined Counter-Meshing Gears (CMG) discrimination device which functions as a mechanically coded lock. Each of two CMG has a first portion of its perimeter devoted to continuous driving teeth that mesh with respective pinion gears. Each EMG also has a second portion of its perimeter devoted to regularly spaced discrimination gear teeth that extend outwardly on at least one of three levels of the CMG. The discrimination gear teeth are designed so as to pass each other without interference only if the correct sequence of partial rotations of the CMG occurs in response to a coded series of rotations from the pinion gears. A 24 bit code is normally input to unlock the device. Once unlocked, the device provides a path for an energy or information signal to pass through the device. The device is designed to immediately lock up if any portion of the 24 bit code is incorrect.

  4. Perceptions of weight discrimination: prevalence and comparison to race and gender discrimination in America.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puhl, R M; Andreyeva, T; Brownell, K D

    2008-06-01

    Limited data are available on the prevalence and patterns of body weight discrimination from representative samples. This study examined experiences of weight/height discrimination in a nationally representative sample of US adults and compared their prevalence and patterns with discrimination experiences based on race and gender. Data were from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, a 1995-1996 community-based survey of English-speaking adults aged 25-74 (N=2290). Reported experiences of weight/height discrimination included a variety of institutional settings and interpersonal relationships. Multivariate regression analyses were used to predict weight/height discrimination controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and body weight status. The prevalence of weight/height discrimination ranged from 5% among men to 10% among women, but these average percentages obscure the much higher risk of weight discrimination among heavier individuals (40% for adults with body mass index (BMI) of 35 and above). Younger individuals with a higher BMI had a particularly high risk of weight/height discrimination regardless of their race, education and weight status. Women were at greater risk for weight/height discrimination than men, especially women with a BMI of 30-35 who were three times more likely to report weight/height discrimination compared to male peers of a similar weight. Weight/height discrimination is prevalent in American society and is relatively close to reported rates of racial discrimination, particularly among women. Both institutional forms of weight/height discrimination (for example, in employment settings) and interpersonal mistreatment due to weight/height (for example, being called names) were common, and in some cases were even more prevalent than discrimination due to gender and race.

  5. Visual discrimination in the pigeon (Columba livia): effects of selective lesions of the nucleus rotundus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laverghetta, A. V.; Shimizu, T.

    1999-01-01

    The nucleus rotundus is a large thalamic nucleus in birds and plays a critical role in many visual discrimination tasks. In order to test the hypothesis that there are functionally distinct subdivisions in the nucleus rotundus, effects of selective lesions of the nucleus were studied in pigeons. The birds were trained to discriminate between different types of stationary objects and between different directions of moving objects. Multiple regression analyses revealed that lesions in the anterior, but not posterior, division caused deficits in discrimination of small stationary stimuli. Lesions in neither the anterior nor posterior divisions predicted effects in discrimination of moving stimuli. These results are consistent with a prediction led from the hypothesis that the nucleus is composed of functional subdivisions.

  6. Place of birth effects on self-reported discrimination: Variations by type of discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brondolo, Elizabeth; Rahim, Reanne; Grimaldi, Stephanie; Ashraf, Amina; Bui, Nini; Schwartz, Joseph

    2015-11-01

    Researchers have suggested that perceptions of discrimination may vary depending on place of birth and the length of time spent living in the U.S., variables related to acculturation. However, the existing literature provides a mixed picture, with data suggesting that the effects of acculturation on perceptions of discrimination vary by race and other sociodemographic factors. This study evaluated the role of place of birth (POB: defined as U.S.-born vs. foreign-born), age at immigration, and length of residence in the U.S. on self-reported discrimination in a sample of urban-dwelling Asian and Black adults (n= 1454). Analyses examined POB effects on different types of discrimination including race-related stigmatization, exclusion, threat, and workplace discrimination. Sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, employment status and education level) were tested as potential moderators of the relationship between POB and discrimination. The results revealed a significant main effect for POB on discrimination, with U.S.-born individuals reporting significantly more discrimination than foreign-born individuals, although the effect was reduced when sociodemographic variables were controlled. Across the sample, POB effects were seen only for race-related stigmatization and exclusion, not for threat and workplace discrimination. With the exception of limited effects for gender, sociodemographic variables did not moderate these effects. Younger age at immigration and greater years of residence in the U.S. were also positively associated with higher levels of perceived discrimination. These findings suggest increasing acculturation may shape the experience and perception of racial and ethnic discrimination.

  7. Place of birth effects on self-reported discrimination: Variations by type of discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brondolo, Elizabeth; Rahim, Reanne; Grimaldi, Stephanie; Ashraf, Amina; Bui, Nini; Schwartz, Joseph

    2016-01-01

    Researchers have suggested that perceptions of discrimination may vary depending on place of birth and the length of time spent living in the U.S., variables related to acculturation. However, the existing literature provides a mixed picture, with data suggesting that the effects of acculturation on perceptions of discrimination vary by race and other sociodemographic factors. This study evaluated the role of place of birth (POB: defined as U.S.-born vs. foreign-born), age at immigration, and length of residence in the U.S. on self-reported discrimination in a sample of urban-dwelling Asian and Black adults (n= 1454). Analyses examined POB effects on different types of discrimination including race-related stigmatization, exclusion, threat, and workplace discrimination. Sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, employment status and education level) were tested as potential moderators of the relationship between POB and discrimination. The results revealed a significant main effect for POB on discrimination, with U.S.-born individuals reporting significantly more discrimination than foreign-born individuals, although the effect was reduced when sociodemographic variables were controlled. Across the sample, POB effects were seen only for race-related stigmatization and exclusion, not for threat and workplace discrimination. With the exception of limited effects for gender, sociodemographic variables did not moderate these effects. Younger age at immigration and greater years of residence in the U.S. were also positively associated with higher levels of perceived discrimination. These findings suggest increasing acculturation may shape the experience and perception of racial and ethnic discrimination. PMID:27647943

  8. "More than skin deep": stress neurobiology and mental health consequences of racial discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Maximus; Sarnyai, Zoltán

    2015-01-01

    Ethnic minority groups across the world face a complex set of adverse social and psychological challenges linked to their minority status, often involving racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is increasingly recognized as an important contributing factor to health disparities among non-dominant ethnic minorities. A growing body of literature has recognized these health disparities and has investigated the relationship between racial discrimination and poor health outcomes. Chronically elevated cortisol levels and a dysregulated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis appear to mediate effects of racial discrimination on allostatic load and disease. Racial discrimination seems to converge on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and may impair the function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hence showing substantial similarities to chronic social stress. This review provides a summary of recent literature on hormonal and neural effects of racial discrimination and a synthesis of potential neurobiological pathways by which discrimination affects mental health.

  9. Host thin films incorporating nanoparticles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qureshi, Uzma

    The focus of this research project was the investigation of the functional properties of thin films that incorporate a secondary nanoparticulate phase. In particular to assess if the secondary nanoparticulate material enhanced a functional property of the coating on glass. In order to achieve this, new thin film deposition methods were developed, namely use of nanopowder precursors, an aerosol assisted transport technique and an aerosol into atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition system. Aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) was used to deposit 8 series of thin films on glass. Five different nanoparticles silver, gold, ceria, tungsten oxide and zinc oxide were tested and shown to successfully deposit thin films incorporating nanoparticles within a host matrix. Silver nanoparticles were synthesised and doped within a titania film by AACVD. This improved solar control properties. A unique aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) into atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition (APCVD) system was used to deposit films of Au nanoparticles and thin films of gold nanoparticles incorporated within a host titania matrix. Incorporation of high refractive index contrast metal oxide particles within a host film altered the film colour. The key goal was to test the potential of nanopowder forms and transfer the suspended nanopowder via an aerosol to a substrate in order to deposit a thin film. Discrete tungsten oxide nanoparticles or ceria nanoparticles within a titanium dioxide thin film enhanced the self-cleaning and photo-induced super-hydrophilicity. The nanopowder precursor study was extended by deposition of zinc oxide thin films incorporating Au nanoparticles and also ZnO films deposited from a ZnO nanopowder precursor. Incorporation of Au nanoparticles within a VO: host matrix improved the thermochromic response, optical and colour properties. Composite VC/TiC and Au nanoparticle/V02/Ti02 thin films displayed three useful

  10. The Influence of Eye Closure on Somatosensory Discrimination: A Trade-off Between Simple Perception and Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Götz, Theresa; Hanke, David; Huonker, Ralph; Weiss, Thomas; Klingner, Carsten; Brodoehl, Stefan; Baumbach, Philipp; Witte, Otto W

    2017-06-01

    We often close our eyes to improve perception. Recent results have shown a decrease of perception thresholds accompanied by an increase in somatosensory activity after eye closure. However, does somatosensory spatial discrimination also benefit from eye closure? We previously showed that spatial discrimination is accompanied by a reduction of somatosensory activity. Using magnetoencephalography, we analyzed the magnitude of primary somatosensory (somatosensory P50m) and primary auditory activity (auditory P50m) during a one-back discrimination task in 21 healthy volunteers. In complete darkness, participants were requested to pay attention to either the somatosensory or auditory stimulation and asked to open or close their eyes every 6.5 min. Somatosensory P50m was reduced during a task requiring the distinguishing of stimulus location changes at the distal phalanges of different fingers. The somatosensory P50m was further reduced and detection performance was higher during eyes open. A similar reduction was found for the auditory P50m during a task requiring the distinguishing of changing tones. The function of eye closure is more than controlling visual input. It might be advantageous for perception because it is an effective way to reduce interference from other modalities, but disadvantageous for spatial discrimination because it requires at least one top-down processing stage. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  11. Spatial frequency discrimination: visual long-term memory or criterion setting?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lages, M; Treisman, M

    1998-02-01

    A long-term sensory memory is believed to account for spatial frequency discrimination when reference and test stimuli are separated by long intervals. We test an alternative proposal: that discrimination is determined by the range of test stimuli, through their entrainment of criterion-setting processes. Experiments 1 and 2 show that the 50% point of the psychometric function is largely determined by the midpoint of the stimulus range, not by the reference stimulus. Experiment 3 shows that discrimination of spatial frequencies is similarly affected by orthogonal contextual stimuli and parallel contextual stimuli and that these effects can be explained by criterion-setting processes. These findings support the hypothesis that discrimination over long intervals is explained by the operation of criterion-setting processes rather than by long-term sensory retention of a neural representation of the stimulus.

  12. SYMPTOM AND FUNCTIONAL TRAITS OF BRIEF MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODES AND DISCRIMINATION OF BEREAVEMENT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCabe, Patrick J; Christopher, Paul P

    2016-02-01

    Despite the removal of the bereavement exclusion from DSM-5, clinicians may feel uncertain on how to proceed when caring for a patient who presents with depressive symptoms following the death of someone close. The ability to better distinguish, on a symptom and functional level, between patients who experience depression in the context of bereavement and those with nonbereavement-related depression, could help guide clinical decision making. Individual and clustered depressive symptom and impairment measures were used for modeling bereavement status within a nationally representative longitudinal cohort. Deviance, linear shrinkage factor, and bias-corrected c-statistic were used for identifying a well-calibrated and discriminating final model. Of the 450 (1.2%) respondents with a single brief major depressive episode, 162 (38.4%) reported the episode as bereavement-related. The bereaved were less likely to endorse worthlessness (P depressive episodes following the death of a loved one from other brief episodes. These differences can help guide clinical care of patients who present with depressive symptoms shortly after a loved one's death. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Accuracy and reliability in sex determination from skulls: a comparison of Fordisc® 3.0 and the discriminant function analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guyomarc'h, Pierre; Bruzek, Jaroslav

    2011-05-20

    Identification in forensic anthropology and the definition of a biological profile in bioarchaeology are essential to each of those fields and use the same methodologies. Sex, age, stature and ancestry can be conclusive or dispensable, depending on the field. The Fordisc(®) 3.0 computer program was developed to aid in the identification of the sex, stature and ancestry of skeletal remains by exploiting the Forensic Data Bank (FDB) and computing discriminant function analyses (DFAs). Although widely used, this tool has been recently criticised, principally when used to determine ancestry. Two sub-samples of individuals of known sex were drawn from French (n=50) and Thai (n=91) osteological collections and used to assess the reliability of sex determination using Fordisc(®) 3.0 with 12 cranial measurements. Comparisons were made using the whole FDB as well as using select groups, taking into account the posterior and typicality probabilities. The results of Fordisc(®) 3.0 vary between 52.2% and 77.8% depending on the options and groups selected. Tests of published discriminant functions and the computation of specific DFA were performed in order to discuss the applicability of this software and, overall, to question the pertinence of the use of DFA and linear distances in sex determination, in light of the huge cranial morphological variability. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Probability Density Functions for the CALIPSO Lidar Version 4 Cloud-Aerosol Discrimination (CAD) Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Z.; Kar, J.; Zeng, S.; Tackett, J. L.; Vaughan, M.; Trepte, C. R.; Omar, A. H.; Hu, Y.; Winker, D. M.

    2017-12-01

    In the CALIPSO retrieval algorithm, detection layers in the lidar measurements is followed by their classification as a "cloud" or "aerosol" using 5-dimensional probability density functions (PDFs). The five dimensions are the mean attenuated backscatter at 532 nm, the layer integrated total attenuated color ratio, the mid-layer altitude, integrated volume depolarization ratio and latitude. The new version 4 (V4) level 2 (L2) data products, released in November 2016, are the first major revision to the L2 product suite since May 2010. Significant calibration changes in the V4 level 1 data necessitated substantial revisions to the V4 L2 CAD algorithm. Accordingly, a new set of PDFs was generated to derive the V4 L2 data products. The V4 CAD algorithm is now applied to layers detected in the stratosphere, where volcanic layers and occasional cloud and smoke layers are observed. Previously, these layers were designated as `stratospheric', and not further classified. The V4 CAD algorithm is also applied to all layers detected at single shot (333 m) resolution. In prior data releases, single shot detections were uniformly classified as clouds. The CAD PDFs used in the earlier releases were generated using a full year (2008) of CALIPSO measurements. Because the CAD algorithm was not applied to stratospheric features, the properties of these layers were not incorporated into the PDFs. When building the V4 PDFs, the 2008 data were augmented with additional data from June 2011, and all stratospheric features were included. The Nabro and Puyehue-Cordon volcanos erupted in June 2011, and volcanic aerosol layers were observed in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The June 2011 data thus provides the stratospheric aerosol properties needed for comprehensive PDF generation. In contrast to earlier versions of the PDFs, which were generated based solely on observed distributions, construction of the V4 PDFs considered the

  15. Role of the middle ear muscle apparatus in mechanisms of speech signal discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moroz, B. S.; Bazarov, V. G.; Sachenko, S. V.

    1980-01-01

    A method of impedance reflexometry was used to examine 101 students with hearing impairment in order to clarify the interrelation between speech discrimination and the state of the middle ear muscles. Ability to discriminate speech signals depends to some extent on the functional state of intraaural muscles. Speech discrimination was greatly impaired in the absence of stapedial muscle acoustic reflex, in the presence of low thresholds of stimulation and in very small values of reflex amplitude increase. Discrimination was not impeded in positive AR, high values of relative thresholds and normal increase of reflex amplitude in response to speech signals with augmenting intensity.

  16. The effect of discrimination on job performance and job satisfaction

    OpenAIRE

    Tesfaye, Yodit

    2011-01-01

    Discrimination is one of the most controversial phenomena to challenge the Human Resources (HR) function in the work place. It has been discussed in depth by sociologists, politicians and lawyers and remains a topical issue. Despite advances gender discrimination still persists, and continues to be experienced by women in the contemporary work space. Purpose - As job satisfaction has been shown to directly affect business performance, there has been increased interest in how job satisfact...

  17. Discriminative Motif Discovery via Simulated Evolution and Random Under-Sampling

    OpenAIRE

    Song, Tao; Gu, Hong

    2014-01-01

    Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the sta...

  18. Discriminative power of visual attributes in dermatology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giotis, Ioannis; Visser, Margaretha; Jonkman, Marcel; Petkov, Nicolai

    2013-02-01

    Visual characteristics such as color and shape of skin lesions play an important role in the diagnostic process. In this contribution, we quantify the discriminative power of such attributes using an information theoretical approach. We estimate the probability of occurrence of each attribute as a function of the skin diseases. We use the distribution of this probability across the studied diseases and its entropy to define the discriminative power of the attribute. The discriminative power has a maximum value for attributes that occur (or do not occur) for only one disease and a minimum value for those which are equally likely to be observed among all diseases. Verrucous surface, red and brown colors, and the presence of more than 10 lesions are among the most informative attributes. A ranking of attributes is also carried out and used together with a naive Bayesian classifier, yielding results that confirm the soundness of the proposed method. proposed measure is proven to be a reliable way of assessing the discriminative power of dermatological attributes, and it also helps generate a condensed dermatological lexicon. Therefore, it can be of added value to the manual or computer-aided diagnostic process. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

  19. Discriminative capacity of bronchodilator response measured with three different lung function techniques in asthmatic and healthy children aged 2 to 5 years

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, K G; Bisgaard, H

    2001-01-01

    as compared with placebo in healthy control subjects. Lung function improved to a significantly greater extent in asthmatic children than in control subjects as reflected by all methods. sRaw provided the best discriminative power of such a bronchodilator response, with a sensitivity of 66% and specificity......The primary aim of this study was to quantify and compare bronchodilator responsiveness in healthy and asthmatic children aged 2 to 5 yr. The secondary aim of the study was to compare discriminative capacity (i.e., sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of the reversibility test......) as measured with the impulse oscillation technique were assessed before and 20 min after inhalation of terbutaline from a pressurized metered-dose inhaler via a metal spacer by 92 children (37 healthy controls and 55 asthmatic subjects). The study of healthy children followed a randomized, double...

  20. Bayesian PET image reconstruction incorporating anato-functional joint entropy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tang Jing; Rahmim, Arman

    2009-01-01

    We developed a maximum a posterior (MAP) reconstruction method for positron emission tomography (PET) image reconstruction incorporating magnetic resonance (MR) image information, with the joint entropy between the PET and MR image features serving as the regularization constraint. A non-parametric method was used to estimate the joint probability density of the PET and MR images. Using realistically simulated PET and MR human brain phantoms, the quantitative performance of the proposed algorithm was investigated. Incorporation of the anatomic information via this technique, after parameter optimization, was seen to dramatically improve the noise versus bias tradeoff in every region of interest, compared to the result from using conventional MAP reconstruction. In particular, hot lesions in the FDG PET image, which had no anatomical correspondence in the MR image, also had improved contrast versus noise tradeoff. Corrections were made to figures 3, 4 and 6, and to the second paragraph of section 3.1 on 13 November 2009. The corrected electronic version is identical to the print version.

  1. Incorporating Traffic Control and Safety Hardware Performance Functions into Risk-based Highway Safety Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zongzhi Li

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Traffic control and safety hardware such as traffic signs, lighting, signals, pavement markings, guardrails, barriers, and crash cushions form an important and inseparable part of highway infrastructure affecting safety performance. Significant progress has been made in recent decades to develop safety performance functions and crash modification factors for site-specific crash predictions. However, the existing models and methods lack rigorous treatments of safety impacts of time-deteriorating conditions of traffic control and safety hardware. This study introduces a refined method for computing the Safety Index (SI as a means of crash predictions for a highway segment that incorporates traffic control and safety hardware performance functions into the analysis. The proposed method is applied in a computation experiment using five-year data on nearly two hundred rural and urban highway segments. The root-mean square error (RMSE, Chi-square, Spearman’s rank correlation, and Mann-Whitney U tests are employed for validation.

  2. Gait and posture discrimination in sheep using a tri-axial accelerometer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Radeski, M; Ilieski, V

    2017-07-01

    Temporo-spatial observation of the leg could provide important information about the general condition of an animal, especially for those such as sheep and other free-ranging farm animals that can be difficult to access. Tri-axial accelerometers are capable of collecting vast amounts of data for locomotion and posture observations; however, interpretation and optimization of these data records remain a challenge. The aim of the present study was to introduce an optimized method for gait (walking, trotting and galloping) and posture (standing and lying) discrimination, using the acceleration values recorded by a tri-axial accelerometer mounted on the hind leg of sheep. The acceleration values recorded on the vertical and horizontal axes, as well as the total acceleration values were categorized. The relative frequencies of the acceleration categories (RFACs) were calculated in 3-s epochs. Reliable RFACs for gait and posture discrimination were identified with discriminant function and canonical analyses. Post hoc predictions for the two axes and total acceleration were conducted, using classification functions and classification scores for each epoch. Mahalanobis distances were used to determine the level of accuracy of the method. The highest discriminatory power for gait discrimination yielded four RFACs on the vertical axis, and five RFACs each on the horizontal axis and total acceleration vector. Classification functions showed the highest accuracy for walking and galloping. The highest total accuracy on the vertical and horizontal axes were 90% and 91%, respectively. Regarding posture discrimination, the vertical axis exhibited the highest discriminatory power, with values of RFAC (0, 1]=99.95% for standing; and RFAC (-1, 0]=99.50% for lying. The horizontal axis showed strong discrimination for the lying side of the animal, as values were in the acceleration category of (0, 1] for lying on the left side and (-1, 0] on the right side. The algorithm developed by

  3. The "Big C"-stigma, cancer, and workplace discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stergiou-Kita, Mary; Pritlove, Cheryl; Kirsh, Bonnie

    2016-12-01

    , fear of discrimination, and a minimal need for assistance were reasons provided for not disclosing their cancer. Stigma and workplace discrimination are significant concerns for cancer survivors. Anti-stigma programs should target ongoing myths regarding cancer and survivors' right to work, work abilities and productivity, and incorporate survivors' voices to enhance understanding. Survivors, health care providers, vocational service providers, and employers should become familiar with anti-discrimination legislation and recognize stigma and discriminatory behaviors when they occur. Survivors require guidance to decide whether (or not) to disclose their cancer, how to respond to discriminatory behaviors, and how to best state their needs for workplace accommodations.

  4. Socially-Tolerable Discrimination

    OpenAIRE

    Amegashie, J. Atsu

    2008-01-01

    History is replete with overt discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, citizenship, ethnicity, marital status, academic performance, health status, volume of market transactions, religion, sexual orientation, etc. However, these forms of discrimination are not equally tolerable. For example, discrimination based on immutable or prohibitively unalterable characteristics such as race, gender, or ethnicity is much less acceptable. Why? I develop a simple rent-seeking model of conflict w...

  5. Racial/Ethnic Workplace Discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chavez, Laura J.; Ornelas, India J.; Lyles, Courtney R.; Williams, Emily C.

    2014-01-01

    Background Experiences of discrimination are associated with tobacco and alcohol use, and work is a common setting where individuals experience racial/ethnic discrimination. Few studies have evaluated the association between workplace discrimination and these behaviors, and none have described associations across race/ethnicity. Purpose To examine the association between workplace discrimination and tobacco and alcohol use in a large, multistate sample of U.S. adult respondents to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey Reactions to Race Module (2004–2010). Methods Multivariable logistic regression analyses evaluated cross-sectional associations between self-reported workplace discrimination and tobacco (current and daily smoking) and alcohol use (any and heavy use, and binge drinking) among all participants and stratified by race/ethnicity, adjusting for relevant covariates. Data were analyzed in 2013. Results Among respondents, 70,080 completed the workplace discrimination measure. Discrimination was more common among black non-Hispanic (21%), Hispanic (12%), and other race respondents (11%) than white non-Hispanics (4%) (pdiscrimination was associated with current smoking (risk ratio [RR]=1.32, 95% CI=1.19, 1.47), daily smoking (RR=1.41, 95% CI=1.24, 1.61), and heavy drinking (RR=1.11, 95% CI=1.01, 1.22), but not binge or any drinking. Among Hispanics, workplace discrimination was associated with increased heavy and binge drinking, but not any alcohol use or smoking. Workplace discrimination among black non-Hispanics and white Non-Hispanics was associated with increased current and daily smoking, but not alcohol outcomes. Conclusions Workplace discrimination is common, associated with smoking and alcohol use, and merits further policy attention given the impact of these behaviors on morbidity and mortality. PMID:25441232

  6. Assessing Visuospatial Skills in Parkinson's: Comparison of Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Visual Discrimination to the Judgment of Line Orientation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Renfroe, Jenna B; Turner, Travis H; Hinson, Vanessa K

    2017-02-01

    Judgment of Line Orientation (JOLO) test is widely used in assessing visuospatial deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD). The neuropsychological assessment battery (NAB) offers the Visual Discrimination test, with age and education correction, parallel forms, and co-normed standardization sample for comparisons within and between domains. However, NAB Visual Discrimination has not been validated in PD, and may not measure the same construct as JOLO. A heterogeneous sample of 47 PD patients completed the JOLO and NAB Visual Discrimination within a broader neuropsychological evaluation. Pearson correlations assessed relationships between JOLO and NAB Visual Discrimination performances. Raw and demographically corrected scores from JOLO and Visual Discrimination were only weakly correlated. NAB Visual Discrimination subtest was moderately correlated with overall cognitive functioning, whereas the JOLO was not. Despite apparent virtues, results do not support NAB Visual Discrimination as an alternative to JOLO in assessing visuospatial functioning in PD. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  7. A 16-channel real-time digital processor for pulse-shape discrimination in multiplicity assay

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Joyce, Malcolm J.; Aspinall, M.D.; Cave, F.D.; Lavietes, A.

    2013-06-01

    In recent years, real-time neutron/γ-ray pulse-shape discrimination has become feasible for use with scintillator-based detectors that respond extremely quickly, on the order of 25 ns in terms of pulse width, and their application to a variety of nuclear material assays has been reported. For the in-situ analysis of nuclear materials, measurements are often based on the multiplicity assessment of spontaneous fission events. An example of this is the 240 Pu eff assessment stemming from long-established techniques developed for 3 He-based neutron coincidence counters when 3 He was abundant and cheap. However, such measurements when using scintillator detectors can be plagued by low detection efficiencies and low orders of coincidence (often limited to triples) if the number of detectors in use is similarly limited to 3-4 detectors. Conversely, an array of >10 detector modules arranged to optimize efficiency and multiplicity sensitivity, shifts the emphasis in terms of performance requirement to the real-time digital analyzer and, critically, to the scope remaining in the temporal processing window of these systems. In this paper we report on the design, development and commissioning of a bespoke, 16-channel real-time pulse-shape discrimination analyzer specified for the materials assay challenge summarized above. The analyzer incorporates 16 dedicated and independent high-voltage supplies along with 16 independent digital processing channels offering pulse-shape discrimination at a rate of 3 x 10 6 events per second. These functions are configured from a dedicated graphical user interface, and all settings can be adjusted on-the-fly with the analyzer effectively configured one-time-only (where desired) for subsequent plug-and-play connection, for example to a fuel bundle organic scintillation detector array. (authors)

  8. Multivariable Discriminant Analysis for the Differential Diagnosis of Microcytic Anemia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eloísa Urrechaga

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Iron deficiency anemia and thalassemia are the most common causes of microcytic anemia. Powerful statistical computer programming enables sensitive discriminant analyses to aid in the diagnosis. We aimed at investigating the performance of the multiple discriminant analysis (MDA to the differential diagnosis of microcytic anemia. Methods. The training group was composed of 200 β-thalassemia carriers, 65 α-thalassemia carriers, 170 iron deficiency anemia (IDA, and 45 mixed cases of thalassemia and acute phase response or iron deficiency. A set of potential predictor parameters that could detect differences among groups were selected: Red Blood Cells (RBC, hemoglobin (Hb, mean cell volume (MCV, mean cell hemoglobin (MCH, and RBC distribution width (RDW. The functions obtained with MDA analysis were applied to a set of 628 consecutive patients with microcytic anemia. Results. For classifying patients into two groups (genetic anemia and acquired anemia, only one function was needed; 87.9% β-thalassemia carriers, and 83.3% α-thalassemia carriers, and 72.1% in the mixed group were correctly classified. Conclusion. Linear discriminant functions based on hemogram data can aid in differentiating between IDA and thalassemia, so samples can be efficiently selected for further analysis to confirm the presence of genetic anemia.

  9. Spatial frequency discrimination : visual long-term memory or criterion setting?

    OpenAIRE

    1998-01-01

    A long-term sensory memory is believed to account for spatial frequency discrimination when reference and test stimuli are separated by long intervals. We test an alternative proposal: that discrimination is determined by the range of test stimuli, through their entrainment of criterion-setting processes. Experiments 1 and 2 show that the 50% point of the psychometric function is largely determined by the midpoint of the stimulus range, not by the reference stimulus. Experiment 3 shows that d...

  10. DISCRIMINATION OF WOMEN IN THE LABOUR MARKET OF SR AND MODELS OF DISCRIMINATION

    OpenAIRE

    Ján Vravec; Radovan Baèík

    2012-01-01

    IThe paper deals with the problem of women’s discrimination in the labour market. Significant differences, among women and men in the labour market, are especially in unemployment rate in reward system, and high horizontal and vertical segregation of women. The aspects of discrimination arise despite of existing legislation, which gender discrimination strictly prohibits. An analysis of arguments, consequences and models of women’s discrimination in the labour market can significantly help to...

  11. Quantum-state discrimination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roa, Luis; Retamal, Juan Carlos; Saavedra, Carlos

    2002-01-01

    A proposal for a physical implementation of a quantum-state discrimination protocol using an ion in a linear trap is studied, where two nonorthogonal quantum states are codified using two electronic states of the ion. In addition, a protocol is given for discriminating superpositions of nonorthogonal entangled states between ions inside widely separated optical cavities. The discrimination protocol is extended to the case of N linearly independent nonorthogonal quantum states lying in a space of 2N-1 dimensions

  12. Perceived discrimination: why applicants and employees expect and perceive discrimination

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Abu Ghazaleh, N.

    2012-01-01

    In this dissertation we have investigated perceptions of discrimination. We have shown discrimination exists in the eyes of applicants and employees and especially when from an ethnic minority group. There are psychological variables that influence these perceptions differently for minority and

  13. A dual-mode nanosensor based on carbon quantum dots and gold nanoparticles for discriminative detection of glutathione in human plasma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Yupeng; Pan, Yi; Zhang, Heng; Zhang, Zhaomin; Li, Mei-Jin; Yi, Changqing; Yang, Mengsu

    2014-06-15

    Glutathione (GSH) plays key roles in biological systems and serves many cellular functions. Since biothiols all incorporate thiol, carboxylic and amino groups, discriminative detection of GSH over cysteine (Cys) and homocysteine (Hcy) is still challenging. We herein report a dual-mode nanosensor with both colorimetric and fluorometric readout based on carbon quantum dots and gold nanoparticles for discriminative detection of GSH over Cys/Hcy. The proposed sensing system consists of AuNPs and fluorescent carbon quantum dots (CQDs), where CQDs function as fluorometric reporter, and AuNPs serve a dual function as colorimetric reporter and fluorescence quencher. The mechanism of the nanosensor is based on two distance-dependent phenomenons, color change of AuNPs and FRET. Through controlling the surface properties of as-prepared nanoparticles, the addition of CQDs into AuNPs colloid solution might induce the aggregation of AuNPs and CQDs, leading to AuNPs color changing from red to blue and CQDs fluorescence quench. However, the presence of GSH can protect AuNPs from being aggregated and enlarge the inter-particle distance, which subsequently produces color change and fluorescent signal recovery. The nanosensor described in this report reflects on its simplicity and flexibility, where no further surface functionalization is required for the as-prepared nanoparticles, leading to less laborious and more cost-effective synthesis. The proposed dual-mode nanosensor demonstrated highly selectivity toward GSH, and allows the detection of GSH as low as 50 nM. More importantly, the nanosensor could not only function in aqueous solution for GSH detection with high sensitivity but also exhibit sensitive responses toward GSH in complicated biological environments, demonstrating its potential in bioanalysis and biodection, which might be significant in disease diagnosis in the future. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Towards a functional model of mental disorders incorporating the laws of thermodynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, George C; McKenzie, Karen

    2013-05-01

    The current paper presents the hypothesis that the understanding of mental disorders can be advanced by incorporating the laws of thermodynamics, specifically relating to energy conservation and energy transfer. These ideas, along with the introduction of the notion that entropic activities are symptomatic of inefficient energy transfer or disorder, were used to propose a model of understanding mental ill health as resulting from the interaction of entropy, capacity and work (environmental demands). The model was applied to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and was shown to be compatible with current thinking about this condition, as well as emerging models of mental disorders as complex networks. A key implication of the proposed model is that it argues that all mental disorders require a systemic functional approach, with the advantage that it offers a number of routes into the assessment, formulation and treatment for mental health problems. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Common spatial pattern combined with kernel linear discriminate and generalized radial basis function for motor imagery-based brain computer interface applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hekmatmanesh, Amin; Jamaloo, Fatemeh; Wu, Huapeng; Handroos, Heikki; Kilpeläinen, Asko

    2018-04-01

    Brain Computer Interface (BCI) can be a challenge for developing of robotic, prosthesis and human-controlled systems. This work focuses on the implementation of a common spatial pattern (CSP) base algorithm to detect event related desynchronization patterns. Utilizing famous previous work in this area, features are extracted by filter bank with common spatial pattern (FBCSP) method, and then weighted by a sensitive learning vector quantization (SLVQ) algorithm. In the current work, application of the radial basis function (RBF) as a mapping kernel of linear discriminant analysis (KLDA) method on the weighted features, allows the transfer of data into a higher dimension for more discriminated data scattering by RBF kernel. Afterwards, support vector machine (SVM) with generalized radial basis function (GRBF) kernel is employed to improve the efficiency and robustness of the classification. Averagely, 89.60% accuracy and 74.19% robustness are achieved. BCI Competition III, Iva data set is used to evaluate the algorithm for detecting right hand and foot imagery movement patterns. Results show that combination of KLDA with SVM-GRBF classifier makes 8.9% and 14.19% improvements in accuracy and robustness, respectively. For all the subjects, it is concluded that mapping the CSP features into a higher dimension by RBF and utilization GRBF as a kernel of SVM, improve the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method.

  16. The Badness of Discrimination

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper

    2006-01-01

    . In this paper I address these issues. First, I offer a taxonomy of discrimination. I then argue that discrimination is bad, when it is, because it harms people. Finally, I criticize a rival, disrespect-based account according to which discrimination is bad regardless of whether it causes harm....

  17. Fluid Dynamic Models for Bhattacharyya-Based Discriminant Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noh, Yung-Kyun; Hamm, Jihun; Park, Frank Chongwoo; Zhang, Byoung-Tak; Lee, Daniel D

    2018-01-01

    Classical discriminant analysis attempts to discover a low-dimensional subspace where class label information is maximally preserved under projection. Canonical methods for estimating the subspace optimize an information-theoretic criterion that measures the separation between the class-conditional distributions. Unfortunately, direct optimization of the information-theoretic criteria is generally non-convex and intractable in high-dimensional spaces. In this work, we propose a novel, tractable algorithm for discriminant analysis that considers the class-conditional densities as interacting fluids in the high-dimensional embedding space. We use the Bhattacharyya criterion as a potential function that generates forces between the interacting fluids, and derive a computationally tractable method for finding the low-dimensional subspace that optimally constrains the resulting fluid flow. We show that this model properly reduces to the optimal solution for homoscedastic data as well as for heteroscedastic Gaussian distributions with equal means. We also extend this model to discover optimal filters for discriminating Gaussian processes and provide experimental results and comparisons on a number of datasets.

  18. Distinguishing mixed quantum states: Minimum-error discrimination versus optimum unambiguous discrimination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Herzog, Ulrike; Bergou, Janos A.

    2004-01-01

    We consider two different optimized measurement strategies for the discrimination of nonorthogonal quantum states. The first is ambiguous discrimination with a minimum probability of inferring an erroneous result, and the second is unambiguous, i.e., error-free, discrimination with a minimum probability of getting an inconclusive outcome, where the measurement fails to give a definite answer. For distinguishing between two mixed quantum states, we investigate the relation between the minimum-error probability achievable in ambiguous discrimination, and the minimum failure probability that can be reached in unambiguous discrimination of the same two states. The latter turns out to be at least twice as large as the former for any two given states. As an example, we treat the case where the state of the quantum system is known to be, with arbitrary prior probability, either a given pure state, or a uniform statistical mixture of any number of mutually orthogonal states. For this case we derive an analytical result for the minimum probability of error and perform a quantitative comparison with the minimum failure probability

  19. Capturing the cardiac effects of racial discrimination: Do the effects "keep going"?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoggard, Lori S; Hill, LaBarron K; Gray, DeLeon L; Sellers, Robert M

    2015-08-01

    Racial discrimination negatively impacts cardiac functioning, but few studies examine the more distal cardiac effects of racial discrimination experiences. The present study examined the momentary and prolonged impact of lab-based intergroup and intragroup racial discrimination on heart rate variability (HRV) and heart rate (HR) in a sample (N = 42) of African American (AA) women across two days. On day one, the women were exposed to simulated racial discrimination from either a European American (EA) or AA confederate in the lab. On day two, the women returned to the lab for additional physiological recording and debriefing. Women insulted by the EA confederate exhibited lower HRV on day one and marginally lower HRV on day two. These women also exhibited marginally higher HR on day two. The HRV and HR effects on day two were not mediated by differences in perseveration about the stressor. The findings indicate that racial discrimination - particularly intergroup racial discrimination - may have both momentary and prolonged effects on cardiac activity in AAs. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Cyberbullying: The Discriminant Factors Among Cyberbullies, Cybervictims, and Cyberbully-Victims in a Czech Adolescent Sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bayraktar, Fatih; Machackova, Hana; Dedkova, Lenka; Cerna, Alena; Ševčíková, Anna

    2015-11-01

    Although the research on cyberbullying has increased dramatically in recent years, still little is known about how cyberbullying participant groups (i.e., cyberbullies, cybervictims, and cyberbully-victims) differ from one another. This study aims to discriminate between these groups at an individual and relational level by controlling for age and gender. Self-control, offline aggression, and self-esteem are analyzed as individual-level variables. Parental attachment and peer rejection are involved as relational-level variables. A total of 2,092 Czech adolescents aged 12 to 18 were enrolled from a random sample of 34 primary and secondary schools located in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. Discriminant function analyses indicated that the participant groups are discriminated by two functions. The first function increases the separation between cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims from cybervictims, indicating that cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims are similar to each other in terms of low self-control, offline aggression, and gender, and have higher scores on measures of low self-esteem and offline aggression. However, cyberbully-victims had the highest scores on these measures. The second function discriminates between all three groups, which indicates that those variables included in the second function (i.e., parental attachment, peer rejection, self-esteem, and age) distinguish all three involved groups. © The Author(s) 2014.

  1. Discriminability of Single and Multichannel Intracortical Microstimulation within Somatosensory Cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cynthia Kay Overstreet

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The addition of tactile and proprioceptive feedback to neuroprosthetic limbs is expected to significantly improve the control of these devices. Intracortical microstimulation (ICMS of somatosensory cortex is a promising method of delivering this sensory feedback. To date, the main focus of somatosensory ICMS studies has been to deliver discriminable signals, corresponding to varying intensity, to a single location in cortex. However, multiple independent and simultaneous streams of sensory information will need to be encoded by ICMS to provide functionally relevant feedback for a neuroprosthetic limb (e.g. encoding contact events and pressure on multiple digits.In this study, we evaluated the ability of an awake, behaving non-human primate (Macaca mulatta to discriminate ICMS stimuli delivered on multiple electrodes spaced within somatosensory cortex. We delivered serial stimulation on single electrodes to evaluate the discriminability of sensations corresponding to ICMS of distinct cortical locations. Additionally, we delivered trains of multichannel stimulation, derived from a tactile sensor, synchronously across multiple electrodes. Our results indicate that discrimination of multiple ICMS stimuli is a challenging task, but that discriminable sensory percepts can be elicited by both single and multichannel ICMS on electrodes spaced within somatosensory cortex.

  2. Background reduction and noise discrimination in the proportional counting of tritium using pulse-shape analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hochel, R C; Hayes, D W [Du Pont de Nemours (E.I.) and Co., Aiken, S.C. (USA). Savannah River Lab.

    1975-12-01

    A pulse-shape analysis (PSA) unit of commercial design has been incorporated into a proportional counting system to determine the effectiveness of pulse-shape discrimination in increasing the sensitivity of tritium counting. It was found that a quantitative determination of tritium could be obtained directly from the PSA time spectrum eliminating the need for beta-ray energy selection used in the pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) technique. The performance of the proportional counting system was tested using the PSA unit and anticoincidence shielding, both singly and combined, under several types of background. A background reduction factor of 169 was obtained from the combined PSA-anticoincidence system with only a 2% loss in tritium counting efficiency. The PSA method was also found to offer significant reductions in noise background.

  3. Sub-jet structure as a discriminating quenching probe

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang, X. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Apolinário, L. [CENTRA, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, P-1049-001 Lisboa (Portugal); Milhano, J.G. [CENTRA, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, P-1049-001 Lisboa (Portugal); Physics Department, Theory Unit, CERN, CH-1211 Genève 23 (Switzerland); Płoskoń, M. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)

    2016-12-15

    In this work, we propose a new class of jet substructure observables which, unlike fragmentation functions, are largely insensitive to the poorly known physics of hadronization. We show that sub-jet structures provide us with a large discriminating power between different jet quenching Monte Carlo implementations.

  4. Discrimination learning and attentional set formation in a mouse model of Fragile X.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casten, Kimberly S; Gray, Annette C; Burwell, Rebecca D

    2011-06-01

    Fragile X Syndrome is the most prevalent genetic cause of mental retardation. Selective deficits in executive function, including inhibitory control and attention, are core features of the disorder. In humans, Fragile X results from a trinucleotide repeat in the Fmr1 gene that renders it functionally silent and has been modeled in mice by targeted deletion of the Fmr1 gene. Fmr1 knockout (KO) mice recapitulate many features of Fragile X syndrome, but evidence for deficits in executive function is inconsistent. To address this issue, we trained wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice on an experimental paradigm that assesses attentional set-shifting. Mice learned to discriminate between stimuli differing in two of three perceptual dimensions. Successful discrimination required attending only to the relevant dimension, while ignoring irrelevant dimensions. Mice were trained on three discriminations in the same perceptual dimension, each followed by a reversal. This procedure normally results in the formation of an attentional set to the relevant dimension. Mice were then required to shift attention and discriminate based on a previously irrelevant perceptual dimension. Wild-type mice exhibited the increase in trials to criterion expected when shifting attention from one perceptual dimension to another. In contrast, the Fmr1 KO group failed to show the expected increase, suggesting impairment in forming an attentional set. Fmr1 KO mice also exhibited a general impairment in learning discriminations and reversals. This is the first demonstration that Fmr1 KO mice show a deficit in attentional set formation.

  5. School-Based Racial and Gender Discrimination among African American Adolescents: Exploring Gender Variation in Frequency and Implications for Adjustment

    OpenAIRE

    Cogburn, Courtney D.; Chavous, Tabbye M.; Griffin, Tiffany M.

    2011-01-01

    The present study examined school-based racial and gender discrimination experiences among African American adolescents in Grade 8 (n = 204 girls; n = 209 boys). A primary goal was exploring gender variation in frequency of both types of discrimination and associations of discrimination with academic and psychological functioning among girls and boys. Girls and boys did not vary in reported racial discrimination frequency, but boys reported more gender discrimination experiences. Multiple reg...

  6. Mass discrimination

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Broeckman, A. [Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht (Netherlands)

    1978-12-15

    In thermal ionization mass spectrometry the phenomenon of mass discrimination has led to the use of a correction factor for isotope ratio-measurements. The correction factor is defined as the measured ratio divided by the true or accepted value of this ratio. In fact this factor corrects for systematic errors of the whole procedure; however mass discrimination is often associated just with the mass spectrometer.

  7. Evaluation of Classifier Performance for Multiclass Phenotype Discrimination in Untargeted Metabolomics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trainor, Patrick J; DeFilippis, Andrew P; Rai, Shesh N

    2017-06-21

    Statistical classification is a critical component of utilizing metabolomics data for examining the molecular determinants of phenotypes. Despite this, a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of the accuracy of classification techniques for phenotype discrimination given metabolomics data has not been conducted. We conducted such an evaluation using both simulated and real metabolomics datasets, comparing Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), Sparse PLS-DA, Random Forests, Support Vector Machines (SVM), Artificial Neural Network, k -Nearest Neighbors ( k -NN), and Naïve Bayes classification techniques for discrimination. We evaluated the techniques on simulated data generated to mimic global untargeted metabolomics data by incorporating realistic block-wise correlation and partial correlation structures for mimicking the correlations and metabolite clustering generated by biological processes. Over the simulation studies, covariance structures, means, and effect sizes were stochastically varied to provide consistent estimates of classifier performance over a wide range of possible scenarios. The effects of the presence of non-normal error distributions, the introduction of biological and technical outliers, unbalanced phenotype allocation, missing values due to abundances below a limit of detection, and the effect of prior-significance filtering (dimension reduction) were evaluated via simulation. In each simulation, classifier parameters, such as the number of hidden nodes in a Neural Network, were optimized by cross-validation to minimize the probability of detecting spurious results due to poorly tuned classifiers. Classifier performance was then evaluated using real metabolomics datasets of varying sample medium, sample size, and experimental design. We report that in the most realistic simulation studies that incorporated non-normal error distributions, unbalanced phenotype allocation, outliers, missing values, and dimension reduction

  8. Logistic discriminant parametric mapping: a novel method for the pixel-based differential diagnosis of Parkinson's disease

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Acton, P.D.; Mozley, P.D.; Kung, H.F.; Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia, PA

    1999-01-01

    Positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission tomography (SPET) imaging of the dopaminergic system is a powerful tool for distinguishing groups of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the differential diagnosis of individual subjects presenting early in the progress of the disease is much more difficult, particularly using region-of-interest analysis where small localized differences between subjects are diluted. In this paper we present a novel pixel-based technique using logistic discriminant analysis to distinguish between a group of PD patients and age-matched healthy controls. Simulated images of an anthropomorphic head phantom were used to test the sensitivity of the technique to striatal lesions of known size. The methodology was applied to real clinical SPET images of binding of technetium-99m labelled TRODAT-1 to dopamine transporters in PD patients (n=42) and age-matched controls (n=23). The discriminant model was trained on a subset (n=17) of patients for whom the diagnosis was unequivocal. Logistic discriminant parametric maps were obtained for all subjects, showing the probability distribution of pixels classified as being consistent with PD. The probability maps were corrected for correlated multiple comparisons assuming an isotropic Gaussian point spread function. Simulated lesion sizes measured by logistic discriminant parametric mapping (LDPM) gave strong correlations with the known data (r 2 =0.985, P<0.001). LDPM correctly classified all PD patients (sensitivity 100%) and only misclassified one control (specificity 95%). All patients who had equivocal clinical symptoms associated with early onset PD (n=4) were correctly assigned to the patient group. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) had a sensitivity of only 24% on the same patient group. LDPM is a powerful pixel-based tool for the differential diagnosis of patients with PD and healthy controls. The diagnosis of disease even

  9. Feelings: what questions best discriminate women with and without eating disorders?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abraham, S F; von Lojewski, A; Anderson, G; Clarke, S; Russell, J

    2009-03-01

    This study explored feelings that discriminate between eating disorder and community groups of women. Responses to 25 questions about body image (9), eating (8) self-esteem (3) general psychology (5) were collected in 2002-2003 (N=268) and 2005-2006 (N=472). Wilk's lambda was used to test discrimination. The most discriminating psychological questions were: 'feeling unhappy and unable to cope as well as usual', 'unease attending social functions', 'fearing loss of control over emotions'; and for eating questions were: 'feeling uneasy if other people saw you eating', 'feeling preoccupied with food/eating', 'fearing loss of control over eating'. For body image only 'feeling preoccupied with body weight/shape' and 'fearing loss of control over your body' discriminated. Questions relating to weight and shape for self-esteem ('feeling fat', 'fearing weight gain' and 'wanting to lose weight') discriminated poorly. Results for both cohorts were consistent. Preoccupation with thoughts of eating or body image and fear of loss of control of these would be useful additions to eating disorders criteria. Psychological impairment should also be present.

  10. Workplace discrimination: experiences of practicing physicians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coombs, Alice A Tolbert; King, Roderick K

    2005-04-01

    In response to a growing concern regarding physician discrimination in the workplace, this study was developed to: (1) describe the types of discrimination that exist for the practicing physician and (2) determine which groups of physicians are more likely to experience the various forms of discrimination. Surveys were mailed to 1930 practicing physicians in Massachusetts. Participants were asked if they had encountered discrimination, how significant the discrimination was against a specific group, the frequency of personal discrimination, and the type of discrimination. Factor analysis identified four types of discrimination: career advancement, punitive behaviors, practice barriers and hiring barriers. A total of 445 responses were received (a 24% response rate). Sixty-three percent of responding physicians had experienced some form of discrimination. Respondents were women (46%), racial/ethnic minorities (42%) and international medical graduates (IMGs) (40%). In addition, 26% of those classified as white were also IMGs. Over 60% of respondents believed discrimination against IMGs was very or somewhat significant. Almost 27% of males acknowledged that gender bias against females was very or somewhat significant. IMGs were more likely to indicate that discrimination against IMGs was significant in their current organization. Of U.S. medical graduates (USMGs) 44% reported that discrimination against IMGs in their current organization was significant. Nonwhites were more likely to report that discrimination based on race/ethnicity was significant. Nearly 29% of white respondents also believed that such discrimination was very or somewhat significant. Physicians practicing in academic, research, and private practice sectors experience discrimination based on gender, ethnic/racial, and IMG status.

  11. Relative sensitivity of depth discrimination for ankle inversion and plantar flexion movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Black, Georgia; Waddington, Gordon; Adams, Roger

    2014-02-01

    25 participants (20 women, 5 men) were tested for sensitivity in discrimination between sets of six movements centered on 8 degrees, 11 degrees, and 14 degrees, and separated by 0.3 degrees. Both inversion and plantar flexion movements were tested. Discrimination of the extent of inversion movement was observed to decline linearly with increasing depth; however, for plantar flexion, the discrimination function for movement extent was found to be non-linear. The relatively better discrimination of plantar flexion movements than inversion movements at around 11 degrees from horizontal is interpreted as an effect arising from differential amounts of practice through use, because this position is associated with the plantar flexion movement made in normal walking. The fact that plantar flexion movements are discriminated better than inversion at one region but not others argues against accounts of superior proprioceptive sensitivity for plantar flexion compared to inversion that are based on general properties of plantar flexion such as the number of muscle fibres on stretch.

  12. How to combat the negative impact of discrimination in a collectivist context? The safeguarding function of peer-oriented hope.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Datu, Jesus Alfonso D; Jose Mateo, Nino

    2017-03-01

    The objective of the study was to assess the moderating role of locus-of-hope on the relations between everyday discrimination and well-being outcomes in a collectivist setting. There were 444 Filipino undergraduate students who participated in the research. Findings showed that discrimination was negatively linked to subjective well-being and flourishing while loci-of-hope (internal, external-spiritual, external-family, and external-peers) were positively associated with well-being indices. Further, external-peer locus-of-hope moderated the relations between everyday discrimination and well-being outcomes such that for those who had higher external-peer locus-of-hope, everyday discrimination may still be linked to greater well-being. The theoretical and practical implications are elucidated.

  13. From discrimination to internalized mental illness stigma: The mediating roles of anticipated discrimination and anticipated stigma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinn, Diane M; Williams, Michelle K; Weisz, Bradley M

    2015-06-01

    Internalizing mental illness stigma is related to poorer well-being, but less is known about the factors that predict levels of internalized stigma. This study explored how experiences of discrimination relate to greater anticipation of discrimination and devaluation in the future and how anticipation of stigma in turn predicts greater stigma internalization. Participants were 105 adults with mental illness who self-reported their experiences of discrimination based on their mental illness, their anticipation of discrimination and social devaluation from others in the future, and their level of internalized stigma. Participants were approached in several locations and completed surveys on laptop computers. Correlational analyses indicated that more experiences of discrimination due to one's mental illness were related to increased anticipated discrimination in the future, increased anticipated social stigma from others, and greater internalized stigma. Multiple serial mediator analyses showed that the effect of experiences of discrimination on internalized stigma was fully mediated by increased anticipated discrimination and anticipated stigma. Experiences of discrimination over one's lifetime may influence not only how much future discrimination people with mental illness are concerned with but also how much they internalize negative feelings about the self. Mental health professionals may need to address concerns with future discrimination and devaluation in order to decrease internalized stigma. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  14. Tuning the work function of VO_2(1 0 0) surface by Ag adsorption and incorporation: Insights from first-principles calculations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Lanli; Wang, Xiaofang; Shi, Siqi; Cui, Yuanyuan; Luo, Hongjie; Gao, Yanfeng

    2016-01-01

    Graphical abstract: - Highlights: • After adsorption, there is a charge transfer from Ag to VO_2(1 0 0) surface, which thus increases the electron concentration in VO_2 thin film. • Ag adsorption on VO_2(1 0 0) surface process is an exothermic chemical process, and the adsorption system is stable. • The work function can be tuned by Ag adsorption on and incorporation into the VO_2(1 0 0) surface, which in turn regulates the phase transition temperature of VO_2. - Abstract: VO_2 is an attractive material for application to thermochromic optoelectronic devices such as smart windows, and Ag/VO_2 double-layered structure can effectively decrease the phase transition temperature (T_c) of VO_2 thin film, which is very important for practical application of VO_2. Previous works has shown that the decrease in phase transition temperature (T_c) seems to be relevant with the work function of VO_2 in Ag/VO_2 double-layered thin film, although the underlying mechanism of tuning its T_c by Ag incorporation and adsorption on the VO_2(1 0 0) surface has been rarely investigated. Our first-principles calculations reveal that the adsorption of Ag atoms on the VO_2(1 0 0) surface rather than incorporation of Ag exhibits a lower work function, which is ascribed to an integrated effect of charge transfer from Ag to VO_2(1 0 0) surface and enhanced surface dipole moment. The results suggest that the decrease in work function of VO_2 with Ag adsorption favors the reduction in T_c. The current findings are helpful to understand the fundamental mechanism for yielding high-efficiency VO_2-based optoelectronic devices.

  15. The incorporation of gender perspective into Spanish health surveys.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rohlfs, Izabella; Borrell, Carme; Artazcoz, Lucia; Escribà-Agüir, Vicenta

    2007-12-01

    Most studies into social determinants of health conducted in Spain based on data from health surveys have focused on social class inequalities. This paper aims to review the progressive incorporation of gender perspective and sex differences into health surveys in Spain, and to suggest design, data collection and analytical proposals as well as to make policy proposals. Changes introduced into health surveys in Spain since 1995 to incorporate gender perspective are examined, and proposals for the future are made, which would permit the analysis of differences in health between women and men as a result of biology or because of gender inequalities. The introduction of gender perspective in health surveys requires the incorporation of questions related to family setting and reproductive work, workplace and society in general to detect gender differences and inequalities (for example, domestic work, intimate partner violence, discrimination, contract type or working hours). Health indicators reflecting differential morbidity and taking into account the different life cycle stages must also be incorporated. Analyses ought to be disaggregated by sex and interpretation of results must consider the complex theoretical frameworks explaining the differences in health between men and women based on sex differences and those related to gender. Analysis of survey data ought to consider the impact of social, political and cultural constructs of each society. Any significant modification in procedures for collection of data relevant to the study of gender will require systematic coordination between institutions generating the data and researchers who are trained in and sensitive to the topic.

  16. Racial and ethnic health disparities: evidence of discrimination's effects across the SEP spectrum.

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Anna, Laura Hoyt; Ponce, Ninez A; Siegel, Judith M

    2010-04-01

    Perceived discrimination is a psychosocial stressor that plays a role in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in self-reported physical and mental health. The purpose of this paper is: (1) to investigate the association between perceived discrimination in receiving healthcare and racial/ethnic disparities in self-rated health status, physical, and emotional functional limitations among a diverse sample of California adults; (2) to assess whether discrimination effects vary by racial/ethnic group and gender; and (3) to evaluate how the effects of discrimination on health are manifest across the socioeconomic position (SEP) spectrum. Data were drawn from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey adult file (n=55,428). The analytic approach employed multivariate linear and logistic regressions. Discrimination is qualitatively identified into two types: (1) discrimination due to race/ethnicity, language, or accent, and (2) other discrimination. Findings show that both types of discrimination negatively influenced self-rated health, and were associated with a two to three-fold odds of limitations in physical and emotional health. Further, these effects varied by racial/ethnic group and gender, and the effects were mixed. Most notably, for emotional health, racial/ethnic discrimination penalized Latinas more than non-Latina Whites, but for physical health, other discrimination was less detrimental to Latinas than it was to non-Latina Whites. At higher levels of SEP, the effects of racial/ethnic discrimination on self-rated health and other discriminations' effects on physical health were attenuated. Higher SEP may serve as an important mitigator, particularly when comparing the medium to the low SEP categories. It is also possible that SEP effects cannot be extracted from the relationships of interest in that SEP is an expression of social discrimination. In fact, negative health effects associated with discrimination are evident across the SEP spectrum. This study

  17. Perceived weight discrimination and obesity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angelina R Sutin

    Full Text Available Weight discrimination is prevalent in American society. Although associated consistently with psychological and economic outcomes, less is known about whether weight discrimination is associated with longitudinal changes in obesity. The objectives of this research are (1 to test whether weight discrimination is associated with risk of becoming obese (Body Mass Index≥30; BMI by follow-up among those not obese at baseline, and (2 to test whether weight discrimination is associated with risk of remaining obese at follow-up among those already obese at baseline. Participants were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of community-dwelling US residents. A total of 6,157 participants (58.6% female completed the discrimination measure and had weight and height available from the 2006 and 2010 assessments. Participants who experienced weight discrimination were approximately 2.5 times more likely to become obese by follow-up (OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.58-4.08 and participants who were obese at baseline were three times more likely to remain obese at follow up (OR = 3.20, 95% CI = 2.06-4.97 than those who had not experienced such discrimination. These effects held when controlling for demographic factors (age, sex, ethnicity, education and when baseline BMI was included as a covariate. These effects were also specific to weight discrimination; other forms of discrimination (e.g., sex, race were unrelated to risk of obesity at follow-up. The present research demonstrates that, in addition to poorer mental health outcomes, weight discrimination has implications for obesity. Rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, weight discrimination increases risk for obesity.

  18. Learning discriminative distance functions for valve retrieval and improved decision support in valvular heart disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voigt, Ingmar; Vitanovski, Dime; Ionasec, Razvan I.; Tsymal, Alexey; Georgescu, Bogdan; Zhou, Shaohua K.; Huber, Martin; Navab, Nassir; Hornegger, Joachim; Comaniciu, Dorin

    2010-03-01

    Disorders of the heart valves constitute a considerable health problem and often require surgical intervention. Recently various approaches were published seeking to overcome the shortcomings of current clinical practice,that still relies on manually performed measurements for performance assessment. Clinical decisions are still based on generic information from clinical guidelines and publications and personal experience of clinicians. We present a framework for retrieval and decision support using learning based discriminative distance functions and visualization of patient similarity with relative neighborhood graphsbased on shape and derived features. We considered two learning based techniques, namely learning from equivalence constraints and the intrinsic Random Forest distance. The generic approach enables for learning arbitrary user-defined concepts of similarity depending on the application. This is demonstrated with the proposed applications, including automated diagnosis and interventional suitability classification, where classification rates of up to 88.9% and 85.9% could be observed on a set of valve models from 288 and 102 patients respectively.

  19. Low power constant fraction discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Krishnan, Shanti; Raut, S.M.; Mukhopadhyay, P.K.

    2001-01-01

    This paper describes the design of a low power ultrafast constant fraction discriminator, which significantly reduces the power consumption. A conventional fast discriminator consumes about 1250 MW of power whereas this low power version consumes about 440 MW. In a multi detector system, where the number of discriminators is very large, reduction of power is of utmost importance. This low power discriminator is being designed for GRACE (Gamma Ray Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiments) telescope where 1000 channels of discriminators are required. A novel method of decreasing power consumption has been described. (author)

  20. Automatic discrimination of fine roots in minirhizotron images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Guang; Birchfield, Stanley T; Wells, Christina E

    2008-01-01

    Minirhizotrons provide detailed information on the production, life history and mortality of fine roots. However, manual processing of minirhizotron images is time-consuming, limiting the number and size of experiments that can reasonably be analysed. Previously, an algorithm was developed to automatically detect and measure individual roots in minirhizotron images. Here, species-specific root classifiers were developed to discriminate detected roots from bright background artifacts. Classifiers were developed from training images of peach (Prunus persica), freeman maple (Acer x freemanii) and sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana) using the Adaboost algorithm. True- and false-positive rates for classifiers were estimated using receiver operating characteristic curves. Classifiers gave true positive rates of 89-94% and false positive rates of 3-7% when applied to nontraining images of the species for which they were developed. The application of a classifier trained on one species to images from another species resulted in little or no reduction in accuracy. These results suggest that a single root classifier can be used to distinguish roots from background objects across multiple minirhizotron experiments. By incorporating root detection and discrimination algorithms into an open-source minirhizotron image analysis application, many analysis tasks that are currently performed by hand can be automated.

  1. Does perceived discrimination affect health? Longitudinal relationships between work discrimination and women's physical and emotional health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pavalko, Eliza K; Mossakowski, Krysia N; Hamilton, Vanessa J

    2003-03-01

    This study uses longitudinal data to examine the causal relationships between perceived work discrimination and women's physical and emotional health. Using data on 1,778 employed women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women, we investigate the structural and individual characteristics that predict later perceptions of discrimination and the effects of those perceptions on subsequent health. We find that perceptions of discrimination are influenced by job attitudes, prior experiences of discrimination, and work contexts, but prior health is not related to later perceptions. However, perceptions of discrimination do impact subsequent health, and these effects remain significant after controlling for prior emotional health, physical health limitations, discrimination, and job characteristics. Overall, the results provide even stronger support for the health impact of workplace discrimination and suggest a need for further longitudinal analyses of causes and consequences of perceived discrimination.

  2. DISCRIMINATION BY ASSOCIATION IN EUROPEAN LAW

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cătălina-Adriana Ivănuș

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The european law prohibit direct and indirect discrimination and harrasment on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The question is what is the situation when someone is discriminated on can claim to be the victim of unlawful discrimination because he or she is associated with another person who has the protected characteristic. The the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in Coleman v Attridge Law and Steve Law confirms, for the first time in European law, the existence of the concept of discrimination by association. In this article I examine the implications of this case on all conceps of discrimination concepts of discrimination in European law (direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment. I also examine the application of discrimination by association to grounds other than disability.

  3. Joint probability discrimination between stationary tissue and blood velocity signals

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schlaikjer, Malene; Jensen, Jørgen Arendt

    2001-01-01

    before and after echo-canceling, and (b) the amplitude variations between samples in consecutive RF-signals before and after echo-canceling. The statistical discriminator was obtained by computing the probability density functions (PDFs) for each feature through histogram analysis of data....... This study presents a new statistical discriminator. Investigation of the RF-signals reveals that features can be derived that distinguish the segments of the signal, which do an do not carry information on the blood flow. In this study 4 features, have been determined: (a) the energy content in the segments....... The discrimination is performed by determining the joint probability of the features for the segment under investigation and choosing the segment type that is most likely. The method was tested on simulated data resembling RF-signals from the carotid artery....

  4. From Discrimination to Internalized Mental Illness Stigma: The Mediating Roles of Anticipated Discrimination and Anticipated Stigma

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinn, Diane M.; Williams, Michelle K.; Weisz, Bradley M.

    2015-01-01

    Objective Internalizing mental illness stigma is related to poorer well-being, but less is known about the factors that predict levels of internalized stigma. This study explored how experiences of discrimination relate to greater anticipation of discrimination and devaluation in the future, and how anticipation of stigma, in turn predicts greater stigma internalization. Method Participants were 105 adults with mental illness who self-reported their experiences of discrimination based on their mental illness, their anticipation of discrimination and social devaluation from others in the future, and their level of internalized stigma. Participants were approached in several locations and completed surveys on laptop computers. Results Correlational analyses indicated that more experiences of discrimination due to one’s mental illness were related to increased anticipated discrimination in the future, increased anticipated social stigma from others, and greater internalized stigma. Multiple serial mediator analyses showed that the effect of experiences of discrimination on internalized stigma was fully mediated by increased anticipated discrimination and anticipated stigma. Conclusion and Implications for Practice Experiences of discrimination over the lifetime may influence not only how much future discrimination people with mental illness are concerned with but also how much they internalize negative feelings about the self. Mental health professionals may need to address concerns with future discrimination and devaluation in order to decrease internalized stigma. PMID:25844910

  5. Gene transfer, expression, and sarcomeric incorporation of a headless myosin molecule in cardiac myocytes: evidence for a reserve in myofilament motor function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vandenboom, Rene; Herron, Todd; Favre, Elizabeth; Albayya, Faris P.

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to implement a living myocyte in vitro model system to test whether a motor domain-deleted headless myosin construct could be incorporated into the sarcomere and affect contractility. To this end we used gene transfer to express a “headless” myosin heavy chain (headless-MHC) in complement with the native full-length myosin motors in the cardiac sarcomere. An NH2-terminal Flag epitope was used for unique detection of the motor domain-deleted headless-MHC. Total MHC content (i.e., headless-MHC + endogenous MHC) remained constant, while expression of the headless-MHC in transduced myocytes increased from 24 to 72 h after gene transfer until values leveled off at 96 h after gene transfer, at which time the headless-MHC comprised ∼20% of total MHC. Moreover, immunofluorescence labeling and confocal imaging confirmed expression and demonstrated incorporation of the headless-MHC in the A band of the cardiac sarcomere. Functional measurements in intact myocytes showed that headless-MHC modestly reduced amplitude of dynamic twitch contractions compared with controls (P < 0.05). In chemically permeabilized myocytes, maximum steady-state isometric force and the tension-pCa relationship were unaltered by the headless-MHC. These data suggest that headless-MHC can express to 20% of total myosin and incorporate into the sarcomere yet have modest to no effects on dynamic and steady-state contractile function. This would indicate a degree of functional tolerance in the sarcomere for nonfunctional myosin molecules. PMID:21112946

  6. Characterizing arsenic in preserved hair for assessing exposure potential and discriminating poisoning

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kempson, Ivan M.; Henry, Dermot; Francis, James; (Museum Vic.); (U. South Australia); (UWO)

    2009-05-21

    Advanced analytical techniques have been used to characterize arsenic in taxidermy specimens. Arsenic was examined to aid in discriminating its use as a preservative from that incorporated by ingestion and hence indicate poisoning (in the case of historical figures). The results are relevant to museum curators, occupational and environmental exposure concerns, toxicological and anthropological investigations. Hair samples were obtained from six taxidermy specimens preserved with arsenic in the late 1800s and early 1900s to investigate the arsenic incorporation. The presence of arsenic poses a potential hazard in museum and private collections. For one sample, arsenic was confirmed to be present on the hair with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and then measured with neutron activation analysis to comprise 176 {mu}g g{sup -1}. The hair cross section was analysed with synchrotron micro-X-ray fluorescence to investigate the transverse distribution of topically applied arsenic. It was found that the arsenic had significantly penetrated all hair samples. Association with melanin clusters and the medulla was observed. Lead and mercury were also identified in one sample. X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy of the As K-edge indicated that an arsenate species predominantly existed in all samples; however, analysis was hindered by very rapid photoreduction of the arsenic. It would be difficult to discriminate arsenic consumption from topically applied arsenic based on the physical transverse distribution. Longitudinal distributions and chemical speciation may still allow differentiation.

  7. INTERNAL TRANSCRIBED SPACER (ITS), AN IDEAL DNA BARCODE FOR SPECIES DISCRIMINATION IN CRAWFURDIA WALL. (GENTIANACEAE).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Dequan; Jiang, Bei; Duan, Lizhen; Zhou, Nong

    2016-01-01

    DNA barcoding is a technique used to identify species based on species-specific differences in short regions of their DNA. It is widely used in species discrimination of medicinal plants and traditional medicines. In the present study, four potential DNA barcodes, namely rbcL , matK , trnH-psbA and ITS (nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer) were adopted for species discrimination in Crawfurdia Wall (Genetiaceae). Identification ability of these DNA barcodes and combinations were evaluated using three classic methods (Distance, Blast and Tree-Building). As a result, ITS, trnH-psbA and rbcL regions showed great universality for a success rate of 100%; whereas matK was disappointing for which only 65% samples gained useful DNA sequences. ITS region, which could clearly and effectively identify the five species in Crawfurdia , performed very well in this study. On the contrary, trnH-psbA and rbcL performed poorly in discrimination among these species. ITS marker was an ideal DNA barcode in Crawfurdia and it should be incorporated into one of the core barcodes for seed plants.

  8. Quantifying explainable discrimination and removing illegal discrimination in automated decision making

    KAUST Repository

    Kamiran, Faisal; Žliobaite, Indre; Calders, Toon

    2012-01-01

    discrimination and do not take into account that part of the discrimination may be explainable by other attributes. For example, in a job application, the education level of a job candidate could be such an explainable attribute. If the data contain many highly

  9. JUSTIFICATION FOR INDIRECT DISCRIMINATION IN EU

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cătălina-Adriana Ivănuş

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The right to non-discrimination is very important for a civilized society. EU legislation establishes direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, instruction to discriminate and any less favourable treatment of a woman related to pregnancy or maternity leave as forms of discrimination. The law and the Court of Justice permit the justification of indirect discrimination.

  10. JUSTIFICATION FOR INDIRECT DISCRIMINATION IN EU

    OpenAIRE

    Cătălina-Adriana Ivănuş

    2014-01-01

    The right to non-discrimination is very important for a civilized society. EU legislation establishes direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, instruction to discriminate and any less favourable treatment of a woman related to pregnancy or maternity leave as forms of discrimination. The law and the Court of Justice permit the justification of indirect discrimination.

  11. MIDAS: Regionally linear multivariate discriminative statistical mapping.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varol, Erdem; Sotiras, Aristeidis; Davatzikos, Christos

    2018-07-01

    Statistical parametric maps formed via voxel-wise mass-univariate tests, such as the general linear model, are commonly used to test hypotheses about regionally specific effects in neuroimaging cross-sectional studies where each subject is represented by a single image. Despite being informative, these techniques remain limited as they ignore multivariate relationships in the data. Most importantly, the commonly employed local Gaussian smoothing, which is important for accounting for registration errors and making the data follow Gaussian distributions, is usually chosen in an ad hoc fashion. Thus, it is often suboptimal for the task of detecting group differences and correlations with non-imaging variables. Information mapping techniques, such as searchlight, which use pattern classifiers to exploit multivariate information and obtain more powerful statistical maps, have become increasingly popular in recent years. However, existing methods may lead to important interpretation errors in practice (i.e., misidentifying a cluster as informative, or failing to detect truly informative voxels), while often being computationally expensive. To address these issues, we introduce a novel efficient multivariate statistical framework for cross-sectional studies, termed MIDAS, seeking highly sensitive and specific voxel-wise brain maps, while leveraging the power of regional discriminant analysis. In MIDAS, locally linear discriminative learning is applied to estimate the pattern that best discriminates between two groups, or predicts a variable of interest. This pattern is equivalent to local filtering by an optimal kernel whose coefficients are the weights of the linear discriminant. By composing information from all neighborhoods that contain a given voxel, MIDAS produces a statistic that collectively reflects the contribution of the voxel to the regional classifiers as well as the discriminative power of the classifiers. Critically, MIDAS efficiently assesses the

  12. Genetic pleiotropy explains associations between musical auditory discrimination and intelligence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mosing, Miriam A; Pedersen, Nancy L; Madison, Guy; Ullén, Fredrik

    2014-01-01

    Musical aptitude is commonly measured using tasks that involve discrimination of different types of musical auditory stimuli. Performance on such different discrimination tasks correlates positively with each other and with intelligence. However, no study to date has explored these associations using a genetically informative sample to estimate underlying genetic and environmental influences. In the present study, a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 10,500) was used to investigate the genetic architecture of the associations between intelligence and performance on three musical auditory discrimination tasks (rhythm, melody and pitch). Phenotypic correlations between the tasks ranged between 0.23 and 0.42 (Pearson r values). Genetic modelling showed that the covariation between the variables could be explained by shared genetic influences. Neither shared, nor non-shared environment had a significant effect on the associations. Good fit was obtained with a two-factor model where one underlying shared genetic factor explained all the covariation between the musical discrimination tasks and IQ, and a second genetic factor explained variance exclusively shared among the discrimination tasks. The results suggest that positive correlations among musical aptitudes result from both genes with broad effects on cognition, and genes with potentially more specific influences on auditory functions.

  13. A common signal detection model accounts for both perception and discrimination of the watercolor effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devinck, Frédéric; Knoblauch, Kenneth

    2012-03-21

    Establishing the relation between perception and discrimination is a fundamental objective in psychophysics, with the goal of characterizing the neural mechanisms mediating perception. Here, we show that a procedure for estimating a perceptual scale based on a signal detection model also predicts discrimination performance. We use a recently developed procedure, Maximum Likelihood Difference Scaling (MLDS), to measure the perceptual strength of a long-range, color, filling-in phenomenon, the Watercolor Effect (WCE), as a function of the luminance ratio between the two components of its generating contour. MLDS is based on an equal-variance, gaussian, signal detection model and yields a perceptual scale with interval properties. The strength of the fill-in percept increased 10-15 times the estimate of the internal noise level for a 3-fold increase in the luminance ratio. Each observer's estimated scale predicted discrimination performance in a subsequent paired-comparison task. A common signal detection model accounts for both the appearance and discrimination data. Since signal detection theory provides a common metric for relating discrimination performance and neural response, the results have implications for comparing perceptual and neural response functions.

  14. Perceiving discrimination in "real life" : Distinguishing negative events from discrimination attributions.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Thijs, J.T.; Piscoi, Dea

    2016-01-01

    The present survey study examined a sample of ethnic minority preadolescents (ages 9–13) and made the empirical distinction between their exposure to peer victimization and the extent to which they attributed this to discrimination. Both peer victimization and the attribution to discrimination were

  15. Background reduction and noise discrimination in the proportional counting of tritium using pulse-shape analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hochel, R.C.; Hayes, D.W.

    1975-01-01

    A pulse-shape analysis (PSA) unit of commercial design has been incorporated into a proportional counting system to determine the effectiveness of pulse-shape discrimination in increasing the sensitivity of tritium counting. It was found that a quantitative determination of tritium could be obtained directly from the PSA time spectrum eliminating the need for beta-ray energy selection used in the pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) technique. The performance of the proportional counting system was tested using the PSA unit and anticoincidence shielding, both singly and combined, under several types of background. A background reduction factor of 169 was obtained from the combined PSA-anticoincidence system with only a 2% loss in tritium counting efficiency. The PSA method was also found to offer significant reductions in noise background. (Auth.)

  16. Comparison of cranial sex determination by discriminant analysis and logistic regression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amores-Ampuero, Anabel; Alemán, Inmaculada

    2016-04-05

    Various methods have been proposed for estimating dimorphism. The objective of this study was to compare sex determination results from cranial measurements using discriminant analysis or logistic regression. The study sample comprised 130 individuals (70 males) of known sex, age, and cause of death from San José cemetery in Granada (Spain). Measurements of 19 neurocranial dimensions and 11 splanchnocranial dimensions were subjected to discriminant analysis and logistic regression, and the percentages of correct classification were compared between the sex functions obtained with each method. The discriminant capacity of the selected variables was evaluated with a cross-validation procedure. The percentage accuracy with discriminant analysis was 78.2% for the neurocranium (82.4% in females and 74.6% in males) and 73.7% for the splanchnocranium (79.6% in females and 68.8% in males). These percentages were higher with logistic regression analysis: 85.7% for the neurocranium (in both sexes) and 94.1% for the splanchnocranium (100% in females and 91.7% in males).

  17. Flash-Type Discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koshak, William J.

    2010-01-01

    This viewgraph presentation describes the significant progress made in the flash-type discrimination algorithm development. The contents include: 1) Highlights of Progress for GLM-R3 Flash-Type discrimination Algorithm Development; 2) Maximum Group Area (MGA) Data; 3) Retrieval Errors from Simulations; and 4) Preliminary Global-scale Retrieval.

  18. Timbre discrimination in musical patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grey, J M

    1978-08-01

    Most research on timbre perception has studied isolated tones. This study compares timbre discrimination of isolated tones with discrimination in various musical contexts, both single-voiced and multivoiced. Twelve different contexts were used (four isolated tonal comparisons, four single-voice musical patterns, and four multivoice patterns). Listerners judged whether the timbre remained the same or changed during the trial. Two possible versions of any instrumental timbre differed in the physical information used in their synthesis. Three instrumental timbres were tested in all contexts: clarinet, trumpet, and bassoon. The effects of context upon discrimination varied across instruments. The clarinet and trumpet versions were best discriminated in isolated contexts, with discrimination progressively worse in single-voice and multivoice patterns. The bassoon versions were best discriminated in the single-voice patterns, with equal discrimination in the isolated and multivoice cases. It is suggested that these results were due to pronounced physical differences observed between the spectra of the two versions of the bassoon that were not apparent between the versions of the clarinet or trumpet.

  19. Responding to group-based discrimination : The impact of social structure on willingness to engage in mentoring

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hersby, Mette D.; Jetten, Jolanda; Ryan, Michelle K.; Schmitt, Michael T.

    In two studies we examined women's willingness to engage in mentoring as a function of the perceived pervasiveness of gender discrimination and the appraised legitimacy of discrimination. In line with predictions, and confirming predictions from social identity theory, we found that perceiving

  20. Robust linear discriminant analysis with distance based estimators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Yai-Fung; Yahaya, Sharipah Soaad Syed; Ali, Hazlina

    2017-11-01

    Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is one of the supervised classification techniques concerning relationship between a categorical variable and a set of continuous variables. The main objective of LDA is to create a function to distinguish between populations and allocating future observations to previously defined populations. Under the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity, the LDA yields optimal linear discriminant rule (LDR) between two or more groups. However, the optimality of LDA highly relies on the sample mean and pooled sample covariance matrix which are known to be sensitive to outliers. To alleviate these conflicts, a new robust LDA using distance based estimators known as minimum variance vector (MVV) has been proposed in this study. The MVV estimators were used to substitute the classical sample mean and classical sample covariance to form a robust linear discriminant rule (RLDR). Simulation and real data study were conducted to examine on the performance of the proposed RLDR measured in terms of misclassification error rates. The computational result showed that the proposed RLDR is better than the classical LDR and was comparable with the existing robust LDR.

  1. Comparing Linear Discriminant Function with Logistic Regression for the Two-Group Classification Problem.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Xitao; Wang, Lin

    The Monte Carlo study compared the performance of predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) and that of logistic regression (LR) for the two-group classification problem. Prior probabilities were used for classification, but the cost of misclassification was assumed to be equal. The study used a fully crossed three-factor experimental design (with…

  2. Feature extraction with deep neural networks by a generalized discriminant analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stuhlsatz, André; Lippel, Jens; Zielke, Thomas

    2012-04-01

    We present an approach to feature extraction that is a generalization of the classical linear discriminant analysis (LDA) on the basis of deep neural networks (DNNs). As for LDA, discriminative features generated from independent Gaussian class conditionals are assumed. This modeling has the advantages that the intrinsic dimensionality of the feature space is bounded by the number of classes and that the optimal discriminant function is linear. Unfortunately, linear transformations are insufficient to extract optimal discriminative features from arbitrarily distributed raw measurements. The generalized discriminant analysis (GerDA) proposed in this paper uses nonlinear transformations that are learnt by DNNs in a semisupervised fashion. We show that the feature extraction based on our approach displays excellent performance on real-world recognition and detection tasks, such as handwritten digit recognition and face detection. In a series of experiments, we evaluate GerDA features with respect to dimensionality reduction, visualization, classification, and detection. Moreover, we show that GerDA DNNs can preprocess truly high-dimensional input data to low-dimensional representations that facilitate accurate predictions even if simple linear predictors or measures of similarity are used.

  3. Associations of racial discrimination and parental discrimination coping messages with African American adolescent racial identity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richardson, Bridget L; Macon, Tamarie A; Mustafaa, Faheemah N; Bogan, Erin D; Cole-Lewis, Yasmin; Chavous, Tabbye M

    2015-06-01

    Research links racial identity to important developmental outcomes among African American adolescents, but less is known about the contextual experiences that shape youths' racial identity. In a sample of 491 African American adolescents (48% female), associations of youth-reported experiences of racial discrimination and parental messages about preparation for racial bias with adolescents' later racial identity were examined. Cluster analysis resulted in four profiles of adolescents varying in reported frequency of racial discrimination from teachers and peers at school and frequency of parental racial discrimination coping messages during adolescents' 8th grade year. Boys were disproportionately over-represented in the cluster of youth experiencing more frequent discrimination but receiving fewer parental discrimination coping messages, relative to the overall sample. Also examined were clusters of adolescents' 11th grade racial identity attitudes about the importance of race (centrality), personal group affect (private regard), and perceptions of societal beliefs about African Americans (public regard). Girls and boys did not differ in their representation in racial identity clusters, but 8th grade discrimination/parent messages clusters were associated with 11th grade racial identity cluster membership, and these associations varied across gender groups. Boys experiencing more frequent discrimination but fewer parental coping messages were over-represented in the racial identity cluster characterized by low centrality, low private regard, and average public regard. The findings suggest that adolescents who experience racial discrimination but receive fewer parental supports for negotiating and coping with discrimination may be at heightened risk for internalizing stigmatizing experiences. Also, the findings suggest the need to consider the context of gender in adolescents' racial discrimination and parental racial socialization.

  4. [Social exclusion and discrimination of chronically mentally ill people in the Lodz region].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rasmus, Paweł; Nowaczyńska, Ewa; Stetkiewicz-Lewandowicz, Agnieszka; Rasmus, Alicja; Sobów, Tomasz

    2013-11-01

    Mental crisis exerts a negative effect on somatic, psychological and social functioning of a mentally ill person. Mental disease is often accompanied by factors increasing the social exclusion and discrimination of patients. Another problem is deeply rooted stereotypes and prejudices functioning in the public opinion, according to which people who suffer from mental disorder are considered insane and often dangerous for society. In Poland, thanks to, amongst others, the ESF (The European Social Fund) funds, it is possible to finance and implement research concerning social exclusion and discrimination of people who have experienced a mental crisis. The aim of the study was to evaluate the level of social exclusion and discrimination of people suffering from mental disorders from the Lodz region on the basis of seven points scale assessing their personal, occupational, and social functioning. MATERIAL AND METHODS; The study included a group of 101 patients with mental disorders. Participants were selected randomly from mental health institutions from the region of Lodz. To evaluate the problem of social exclusion in the group of patients a interview questionnaire was used. Social exclusion concerned people suffering from schizophrenia and psychosis, more than six years of illness, those with allocated disability pension, non-working and non-learning, with the lowest levels of education and maintaining a one-person household or living with one parent. Those who experienced the lowest degree of social exclusion were mainly people suffering from mood disorders, people with higher education, learning and working, living with both parents. Groups experiencing discrimination were mostly people with schizophrenia, disorders due to psychoactive substances, those with secondary and professional education, patients having a certificate of disability and maintaining a one-person household. Social exclusion of mentally ill people was mainly related to their low education, civic

  5. 20 CFR 405.30 - Discrimination complaints.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 20 Employees' Benefits 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination complaints. 405.30 Section 405... INITIAL DISABILITY CLAIMS Introduction, General Description, and Definitions § 405.30 Discrimination... that an adjudicator has improperly discriminated against you, you may file a discrimination complaint...

  6. International Trade and Labor Market Discrimination

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    R. Chisik (Richard); J.E. Namini (Julian Emami)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractWe embed a competitive search model with labor market discrimination, or nepotism, into a two-sector, two-country framework in order to analyze how labor market discrimination impacts the pattern of international trade and also how trade trade affects discrimination. Discrimination, or

  7. Sensory Discrimination, Working Memory and Intelligence in 9-Year-Old and 11-Year-Old Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voelke, Annik E.; Troche, Stefan J.; Rammsayer, Thomas H.; Wagner, Felicitas L.; Roebers, Claudia M.

    2013-01-01

    More than a century ago, Galton and Spearman suggested that there was a functional relationship between sensory discrimination ability and intelligence. Studies have since been able to confirm a close relationship between general discrimination ability (GDA) and IQ. The aim of the present study was to assess whether this strong relationship…

  8. Tuning the work function of VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface by Ag adsorption and incorporation: Insights from first-principles calculations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chen, Lanli; Wang, Xiaofang [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Shi, Siqi, E-mail: sqshi@shu.edu.cn [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Cui, Yuanyuan [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Luo, Hongjie [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China); Gao, Yanfeng, E-mail: yfgao@shu.edu.cn [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444 (China)

    2016-03-30

    Graphical abstract: - Highlights: • After adsorption, there is a charge transfer from Ag to VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface, which thus increases the electron concentration in VO{sub 2} thin film. • Ag adsorption on VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface process is an exothermic chemical process, and the adsorption system is stable. • The work function can be tuned by Ag adsorption on and incorporation into the VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface, which in turn regulates the phase transition temperature of VO{sub 2}. - Abstract: VO{sub 2} is an attractive material for application to thermochromic optoelectronic devices such as smart windows, and Ag/VO{sub 2} double-layered structure can effectively decrease the phase transition temperature (T{sub c}) of VO{sub 2} thin film, which is very important for practical application of VO{sub 2}. Previous works has shown that the decrease in phase transition temperature (T{sub c}) seems to be relevant with the work function of VO{sub 2} in Ag/VO{sub 2} double-layered thin film, although the underlying mechanism of tuning its T{sub c} by Ag incorporation and adsorption on the VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface has been rarely investigated. Our first-principles calculations reveal that the adsorption of Ag atoms on the VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface rather than incorporation of Ag exhibits a lower work function, which is ascribed to an integrated effect of charge transfer from Ag to VO{sub 2}(1 0 0) surface and enhanced surface dipole moment. The results suggest that the decrease in work function of VO{sub 2} with Ag adsorption favors the reduction in T{sub c}. The current findings are helpful to understand the fundamental mechanism for yielding high-efficiency VO{sub 2}-based optoelectronic devices.

  9. Perceived age discrimination in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rippon, Isla; Kneale, Dylan; de Oliveira, Cesar; Demakakos, Panayotes; Steptoe, Andrew

    2014-05-01

    to examine perceived age discrimination in a large representative sample of older adults in England. this cross-sectional study of over 7,500 individuals used data from the fifth wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a longitudinal cohort study of men and women aged 52 years and older in England. Wave 5 asked respondents about the frequency of five everyday discriminatory situations. Participants who attributed any experiences of discrimination to their age were treated as cases of perceived age discrimination. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios of experiencing perceived age discrimination in relation to selected sociodemographic factors. approximately a third (33.3%) of all respondents experienced age discrimination, rising to 36.8% in those aged 65 and over. Perceived age discrimination was associated with older age, higher education, lower levels of household wealth and being retired or not in employment. The correlates of age discrimination across the five discriminatory situations were similar. understanding age discrimination is vital if we are to develop appropriate policies and to target future interventions effectively. These findings highlight the scale of the challenge of age discrimination for older adults in England and illustrate that those groups are particularly vulnerable to this form of discrimination.

  10. 14 CFR 372.22 - Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination. 372.22 Section 372.22... REGULATIONS OVERSEAS MILITARY PERSONNEL CHARTERS Conditions and Limitations § 372.22 Discrimination. No... any unjust discrimination or any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect...

  11. Effect of organoclay incorporation on dental resin morphology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oliveira, Nadja M.S.; Reis, Romulo P.B.; Leite, Itamara F.; Morais, Crislene R.S.; Silva, Suedina M.L.

    2009-01-01

    The objective of the present work was to incorporate nanosilicates in commercial dental resins in order to prepare dental nanocomposites competitive as commercial nanoparticulates dental resins. Thus, a silicate, Cloisite 20A (C20A), was incorporated in a microhybrid dental resin (Z100) and morphological properties of the nanocomposites evaluated as a function of the incorporation method and the amount of filler employed. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The XRD results evidence that nanocomposites have been obtained and according to SEM results, the morphology of microhybrid resin was modified when C20A nanoparticulate was incorporated improve the size distribution and reduce the agglomeration of the particles. (author)

  12. 14 CFR 399.36 - Unreasonable discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Unreasonable discrimination. 399.36 Section... Unreasonable discrimination. (a) As used in this section: (1) Unreasonable discrimination means unjust discrimination or unreasonable preference or prejudice; and (2) Rate means rate, fare, or charge. (b) Except in...

  13. Lung cancer gene expression database analysis incorporating prior knowledge with support vector machine-based classification method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huang Desheng

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A reliable and precise classification is essential for successful diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Gene expression microarrays have provided the high-throughput platform to discover genomic biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Rational use of the available bioinformation can not only effectively remove or suppress noise in gene chips, but also avoid one-sided results of separate experiment. However, only some studies have been aware of the importance of prior information in cancer classification. Methods Together with the application of support vector machine as the discriminant approach, we proposed one modified method that incorporated prior knowledge into cancer classification based on gene expression data to improve accuracy. A public well-known dataset, Malignant pleural mesothelioma and lung adenocarcinoma gene expression database, was used in this study. Prior knowledge is viewed here as a means of directing the classifier using known lung adenocarcinoma related genes. The procedures were performed by software R 2.80. Results The modified method performed better after incorporating prior knowledge. Accuracy of the modified method improved from 98.86% to 100% in training set and from 98.51% to 99.06% in test set. The standard deviations of the modified method decreased from 0.26% to 0 in training set and from 3.04% to 2.10% in test set. Conclusion The method that incorporates prior knowledge into discriminant analysis could effectively improve the capacity and reduce the impact of noise. This idea may have good future not only in practice but also in methodology.

  14. 14 CFR 380.26 - Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination. 380.26 Section 380.26... REGULATIONS PUBLIC CHARTERS Requirements Applicable to Charter Operators § 380.26 Discrimination. No charter... unjust discrimination or any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever. ...

  15. 45 CFR 1624.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1624.4 Section 1624.4... AGAINST DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF DISABILITY § 1624.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) No qualified... the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination by any legal services program, directly...

  16. Price Discrimination: A Classroom Experiment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aguiló, Paula; Sard, Maria; Tugores, Maria

    2016-01-01

    In this article, the authors describe a classroom experiment aimed at familiarizing students with different types of price discrimination (first-, second-, and third-degree price discrimination). During the experiment, the students were asked to decide what tariffs to set as monopolists for each of the price discrimination scenarios under…

  17. Children's perceptions of gender discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spears Brown, Christia; Bigler, Rebecca S

    2004-09-01

    Children (N = 76; ages 5-10 years) participated in a study designed to examine perceptions of gender discrimination. Children were read scenarios in which a teacher determined outcomes for 2 students (1 boy and 1 girl). Contextual information (i.e., teacher's past behavior), the gender of the target of discrimination (i.e., student), and the gender of the perpetrator (i.e., teacher) were manipulated. Results indicated that older children were more likely than younger children to make attributions to discrimination when contextual information suggested that it was likely. Girls (but not boys) were more likely to view girls than boys as victims of discrimination, and children with egalitarian gender attitudes were more likely to perceive discrimination than were their peers. Copyright 2004 American Psychological Association

  18. Pharmacological inactivation does not support a unique causal role for intraparietal sulcus in the discrimination of visual number.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas K DeWind

    Full Text Available The "number sense" describes the intuitive ability to quantify without counting. Single neuron recordings in non-human primates and functional imaging in humans suggest the intraparietal sulcus is an important neuroanatomical locus of numerical estimation. Other lines of inquiry implicate the IPS in numerous other functions, including attention and decision making. Here we provide a direct test of whether IPS has functional specificity for numerosity judgments. We used muscimol to reversibly and independently inactivate the ventral and lateral intraparietal areas in two monkeys performing a numerical discrimination task and a color discrimination task, roughly equilibrated for difficulty. Inactivation of either area caused parallel impairments in both tasks and no evidence of a selective deficit in numerical processing. These findings do not support a causal role for the IPS in numerical discrimination, except insofar as it also has a role in the discrimination of color. We discuss our findings in light of several alternative hypotheses of IPS function, including a role in orienting responses, a general cognitive role in attention and decision making processes and a more specific role in ordinal comparison that encompasses both number and color judgments.

  19. Adequacy Criteria of Models of the Cargo Inspection System with Material Discrimination Option

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Osipov, S; Chakhlov, S; Osipov, O; Shtein, A; Van, J

    2016-01-01

    Generalized adequacy criteria for mathematical models in order to discriminate materials in X-ray inspection systems by the dual-energy method were developed. Two main approaches of the examination systems to produce the adequacy criteria by the final and the intermediate parameters of the dual-energy method were analyzed. The criteria were specified in respect to the discrimination by the effective atomic number and by the method of level functions. Experimental and theoretical estimates of the discrimination parameters of the test object constituents scanned by fan beams of X-ray radiation with the maximal energies of 4.5 and 9 MeV are given. (paper)

  20. Transgender Discrimination and the Law

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trotter, Richard

    2010-01-01

    An emerging area of law is developing regarding sex/gender identity discrimination, also referred to as transgender discrimination, as distinguished from discrimination based on sexual orientation. A transgendered individual is defined as "a person who has a gender-identity disorder which is a persistent discomfort about one?s assigned sex or…

  1. E-beam crosslinked, biocompatible functional hydrogels incorporating polyaniline nanoparticles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dispenza, C.; Sabatino, M.A.; Niconov, A.; Chmieliewska, D.; Spadaro, G.

    2011-01-01

    Complete text of publication follows. Objective of this research is to develop a functional soft nanocomposites platform that combines the electro-optic properties of conjugated polymer nanoparticles with process flexibility, highly hydrophilic character, 3D structure and biocompatibility of hydrogels, to yield novel soft materials with multi-application potential in diagnostic, therapeutic and regenerative medicine. PANI aqueous nanocolloids in their acid doped, inherently conductive form, are synthesised by means of suitable polymeric stabilisers, i.e. water soluble polymers, that may prevent irreversible PANI particles coalescence and precipitation during synthesis and upon storage. Depending on the nature nad concentration of the polymeric stabiliser, e.g. polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), polyvinylalcohol (PVA) or chitosan (CT), PANI has been synthesised in form of nanoscalar rods, spherical particles or rice grains, respectively. In the present work, e-beam irradiation with a 12 MeV Linac accelerator has been tested, in alternative to gamma-rays, as a viable industrial methodology to generate hydrogel nanocomposites via in-situ crosslinking of the polymers already used to stabilise polyaniline nanocolloids, at low temperature, with no recourse to further addition of molecular weight chemicals and in a few minutes. In these conditions nanoparticles morphology of PANI should be preserved and interesting electro-optical properties can be imparted. The swelling properties of the different hydrogel nanocomposites have been investigated at the variance of the chemical structure of the matrix material and of the pH of the swelling medium. UV-visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopies demonstrate the retained optical activity of the dispersed PANI nanoparticles when incorporated in the hydrogels. Selected formulations have been also subjected to MTT assays and absence of cytotoxicity has been ascertained as the first necessary step to assess their biocompatibility.

  2. [Correlation of diffusion tensor imaging between the cerebral cortex and speech discrimination in presbycusis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Lu; Yu, Shuilian; Chen, Ruichun; Jing, Yan; Liang, Jianping

    2015-09-01

    To investigate the relationship between pure-tone average (PTA), the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the auditory pathway, cognitive cortex and auditory cortex in presbycusis. Twenty-five elderly subjects with presbycusis were participated in the study. PTA, speech discrimination abilities were evaluated in each subject. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was applied to access the FA of the IC, the superior frontal gyrus and the Heschl's gyrus. Compare the difference between two sides of the values of FA in the three areas. Bivariate correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of PTA and FA of the inferior colliculus (IC), the superior frontal gyrus and the Heschl's gyrus on speech discrimination abilities. There were no significant differences between the left and right side of the inferior colliculus (P > 0.05). Higher FA values were recorded at the left side of the Heschl's gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus (P < 0.05). Both PTA and the FA of the superior frontal gyrus have a negative association with speech discrimination abilities (P < 0.01, P < 0.05), while the FA of the Heschl's gyrus has a positive association with speech discrimination abilities (P < 0.05). Our findings indicated that the speech discrimination abilities of the elderly is not only related to the peripheral auditory function, but also to the central auditory and cognitive function.

  3. No discrimination against previous mates in a sexually cannibalistic spider

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fromhage, Lutz; Schneider, Jutta M.

    2005-09-01

    In several animal species, females discriminate against previous mates in subsequent mating decisions, increasing the potential for multiple paternity. In spiders, female choice may take the form of selective sexual cannibalism, which has been shown to bias paternity in favor of particular males. If cannibalistic attacks function to restrict a male's paternity, females may have little interest to remate with males having survived such an attack. We therefore studied the possibility of female discrimination against previous mates in sexually cannibalistic Argiope bruennichi, where females almost always attack their mate at the onset of copulation. We compared mating latency and copulation duration of males having experienced a previous copulation either with the same or with a different female, but found no evidence for discrimination against previous mates. However, males copulated significantly shorter when inserting into a used, compared to a previously unused, genital pore of the female.

  4. The Role of Discrimination in Care Postponement Among Trans-Feminine Individuals in the U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glick, Jennifer L; Theall, Katherine P; Andrinopoulos, Katherine M; Kendall, Carl

    2018-04-01

    This study examines the associations between discrimination experiences (types and locations) and care postponement among trans-feminine individuals in the United States. This secondary, cross-sectional study utilized a subset of the data from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (n = 2248), specifically for trans-feminine individuals. In this analysis, we examined the relationship between discrimination and primary care postponement. Twenty-six percent (26.25%) of the study sample reported delaying preventive care due to fear of discrimination; 23.98%-46.66% of respondents reported past experiences of discrimination (setting dependent). Discrimination in health and non-health settings and different types of discrimination-being denied services, verbally harassed, or physically assaulted-were all significantly associated with delaying care; respondents reporting discrimination were up to 20 times more likely to postpone care. While discrimination at a health location had the strongest association with care postponement (adjusted odds ratio = 9.65, confidence interval = 7.60-12.24), discrimination in all non-health-related locations was also important. Individuals reporting discrimination in greater numbers of locations and multiple types of discrimination were more likely to postpone care. To promote preventive care-seeking, these results affirm the importance of interventions that promote discrimination-free environments for gender minorities.

  5. School-Based Racial and Gender Discrimination among African American Adolescents: Exploring Gender Variation in Frequency and Implications for Adjustment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cogburn, Courtney D; Chavous, Tabbye M; Griffin, Tiffany M

    2011-01-03

    The present study examined school-based racial and gender discrimination experiences among African American adolescents in Grade 8 (n = 204 girls; n = 209 boys). A primary goal was exploring gender variation in frequency of both types of discrimination and associations of discrimination with academic and psychological functioning among girls and boys. Girls and boys did not vary in reported racial discrimination frequency, but boys reported more gender discrimination experiences. Multiple regression analyses within gender groups indicated that among girls and boys, racial discrimination and gender discrimination predicted higher depressive symptoms and school importance and racial discrimination predicted self-esteem. Racial and gender discrimination were also negatively associated with grade point average among boys but were not significantly associated in girls' analyses. Significant gender discrimination X racial discrimination interactions resulted in the girls' models predicting psychological outcomes and in boys' models predicting academic achievement. Taken together, findings suggest the importance of considering gender- and race-related experiences in understanding academic and psychological adjustment among African American adolescents.

  6. Distributed hippocampal patterns that discriminate reward context are associated with enhanced associative binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolosin, Sasha M; Zeithamova, Dagmar; Preston, Alison R

    2013-11-01

    Recent research indicates that reward-based motivation impacts medial temporal lobe (MTL) encoding processes, leading to enhanced memory for rewarded events. In particular, previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of motivated learning have shown that MTL activation is greater for highly rewarded events, with the degree of reward-related activation enhancement tracking the corresponding behavioral memory advantage. These studies, however, do not directly address leading theoretical perspectives that propose such reward-based enhancements in MTL encoding activation reflect enhanced discrimination of the motivational context of specific events. In this study, a high-value or low-value monetary cue preceded a pair of objects, indicating the future reward for successfully remembering the pair. Using representational similarity analysis and high-resolution fMRI, we show that MTL activation patterns are more similar for encoding trials preceded by the same versus different reward cues, indicating a distributed code in this region that distinguishes between motivational contexts. Moreover, we show that activation patterns in hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex (PHc) that differentiate reward conditions during anticipatory cues and object pairs relate to successful associative memory. Additionally, the degree to which patterns differentiate reward contexts in dentate gyrus/CA2,3 and PHc is related to individual differences in reward modulation of memory. Collectively, these findings suggest that distributed activation patterns in the human hippocampus and PHc reflect the rewards associated with individual events. Furthermore, we show that these activation patterns-which discriminate between reward conditions--may influence memory through the incorporation of information about motivational contexts into stored memory representations. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

  7. THE JURIDICAL PROTECTION ON GLOBAL DISCRIMINATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    CRISTINA OTOVESCU FRĂSIE

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available In this study I wished to evidence the main juridical documents referring to discrimination, adopted world wide by the United Nations Organization. Thus, can be identified several types of definitions concerning the discrimination against women, the race discrimination, the torture etc. within the analyzed documents. The democratic countries have laws that punish the discrimination, but, unfortunately, there are discrimination phenomena for example regarding the ethnicity, the gender, the language, the convictions, the age, at the working place, inside the family etc.

  8. Nicotine as a discriminative stimulus for ethanol use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ginsburg, Brett C; Levy, Simon A; Lamb, R J

    2018-01-01

    Abused drugs reinforce behavior; i.e., they increase the probability of the behavior preceding their administration. Abused drugs can also act as discriminative stimuli; i.e., they can set the occasion for responding reinforced by another event. Thus, one abused drug could come to set the occasion for the use of another and this functional relationship may play a role in polysubstance abuse, where common patterns of use could result in this relationship. Here we establish nicotine (0.4mg/kg, ip 5-min pre-session) as a discriminative stimulus for behavior reinforced by ethanol (0.1ml 8% w/v po, versus food) and determine the ability of nicotine (0.02-0.4mg/kg), varenicline (0.1-3.0mg/kg), and ethanol (250 and 500mg/kg) to control responding for ethanol. We compare these results to those from rats where nicotine signaled food was available (and ethanol was not). Nicotine came to function as a discriminative stimulus. Nicotine and varenicline produced dose-dependent increases in responding on the nicotine-appropriate lever while ethanol produced responding on the vehicle-appropriate lever. Whether this responding occurred on the lever that produced ethanol or food access depended on the training condition. These results demonstrate that a drug can come to set the occasion for use of another and suggest that this behavioral mechanism could play an important role in the maintenance of and recovery from polysubstance abuse, depending on the pattern of use. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Unambiguous discrimination of mixed quantum states

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Chi; Feng Yuan; Ying Mingsheng

    2006-01-01

    The problem of unambiguous discrimination between mixed quantum states is addressed by isolating the part of each mixed state which has no contribution to discrimination and by employing the strategy of set discrimination of pure states. A necessary and sufficient condition of unambiguous mixed state discrimination is presented. An upper bound of the efficiency is also derived

  10. Drug use Discrimination Predicts Formation of High-Risk Social Networks: Examining Social Pathways of Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crawford, Natalie D; Ford, Chandra; Rudolph, Abby; Kim, BoRin; Lewis, Crystal M

    2017-09-01

    Experiences of discrimination, or social marginalization and ostracism, may lead to the formation of social networks characterized by inequality. For example, those who experience discrimination may be more likely to develop drug use and sexual partnerships with others who are at increased risk for HIV compared to those without experiences of discrimination. This is critical as engaging in risk behaviors with others who are more likely to be HIV positive can increase one's risk of HIV. We used log-binomial regression models to examine the relationship between drug use, racial and incarceration discrimination with changes in the composition of one's risk network among 502 persons who use drugs. We examined both absolute and proportional changes with respect to sex partners, drug use partners, and injecting partners, after accounting for individual risk behaviors. At baseline, participants were predominately male (70%), black or Latino (91%), un-married (85%), and used crack (64%). Among those followed-up (67%), having experienced discrimination due to drug use was significantly related to increases in the absolute number of sex networks and drug networks over time. No types of discrimination were related to changes in the proportion of high-risk network members. Discrimination may increase one's risk of HIV acquisition by leading them to preferentially form risk relationships with higher-risk individuals, thereby perpetuating racial and ethnic inequities in HIV. Future social network studies and behavioral interventions should consider whether social discrimination plays a role in HIV transmission.

  11. Large number discrimination by mosquitofish.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Agrillo

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Recent studies have demonstrated that fish display rudimentary numerical abilities similar to those observed in mammals and birds. The mechanisms underlying the discrimination of small quantities (<4 were recently investigated while, to date, no study has examined the discrimination of large numerosities in fish. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Subjects were trained to discriminate between two sets of small geometric figures using social reinforcement. In the first experiment mosquitofish were required to discriminate 4 from 8 objects with or without experimental control of the continuous variables that co-vary with number (area, space, density, total luminance. Results showed that fish can use the sole numerical information to compare quantities but that they preferentially use cumulative surface area as a proxy of the number when this information is available. A second experiment investigated the influence of the total number of elements to discriminate large quantities. Fish proved to be able to discriminate up to 100 vs. 200 objects, without showing any significant decrease in accuracy compared with the 4 vs. 8 discrimination. The third experiment investigated the influence of the ratio between the numerosities. Performance was found to decrease when decreasing the numerical distance. Fish were able to discriminate numbers when ratios were 1:2 or 2:3 but not when the ratio was 3:4. The performance of a sample of undergraduate students, tested non-verbally using the same sets of stimuli, largely overlapped that of fish. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Fish are able to use pure numerical information when discriminating between quantities larger than 4 units. As observed in human and non-human primates, the numerical system of fish appears to have virtually no upper limit while the numerical ratio has a clear effect on performance. These similarities further reinforce the view of a common origin of non-verbal numerical systems in all

  12. Multipurpose discriminator with accurate time coupling

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baldin, B.Yu.; Krumshtejn, Z.V.; Ronzhin, A.I.

    1977-01-01

    The principle diagram of a multipurpose discriminator is described, designed on the basis of a wide-band differential amplifier. The discriminator has three independent channels: the timing channel, the lower level discriminator and the control channel. The timing channel and the lower level discriminator are connected to a coincidence circuit. Three methods of timing are used: a single threshold, a double threshold with timing on the pulse front, and a constant fraction timing. The lower level discriminator is a wide-band amplifier with an adjustable threshold. The investigation of compensation characteristics of the discriminator has shown that the time shift of the discriminator output in the constant fraction timing regime does not exceed +-75 ns for the input signal range of 1:85. The time resolution was found to be 20 ns in the 20% energy range near the photo-peak maximum of 60 Co γ source

  13. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at the sn-2 position of triacylglycerols increases DHA incorporation in brown, but not in white adipose tissue, of hamsters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopes, Paula A; Bandarra, Narcisa M; Martins, Susana V; Madeira, Marta S; Ferreira, Júlia; Guil-Guerrero, José L; Prates, José A M

    2018-06-01

    We hypothesised that the incorporation of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) across adipose tissues will be higher when it is ingested as triacylglycerols (TAG) structured at the sn-2 position. Ten-week old male hamsters were allocated to 4 dietary treatments (n = 10): linseed oil (LSO-control group), fish oil (FO), fish oil ethyl esters (FO-EE) and structured DHA at the sn-2 position of TAG (DHA-SL) during 12 weeks. In opposition to the large variations found for fatty acid composition in retroperitoneal white adipose tissue (WAT), brown adipose tissue (BAT) was less responsive to diets. DHA was not found in subcutaneous and retroperitoneal WAT depots but it was successfully incorporated in BAT reaching the highest percentage in DHA-SL. The PCA on plasma hormones (insulin, leptin, adiponectin) and fatty acids discriminated BAT from WATs pointing towards an individual signature on fatty acid deposition, but did not allow for full discrimination of dietary treatments within each adipose tissue.

  14. The context of discrimination: workplace conditions, institutional environments, and sex and race discrimination charges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirsh, C Elizabeth; Kornrich, Sabino

    2008-03-01

    This article explores the organizational conditions under which discrimination charges occur. Drawing on structural and organizational theories of the workplace, the authors demonstrate how organizational conditions affect workers' and regulatory agents' understandings of unlawful discrimination. Using a national sample of work establishments, matched to discrimination-charge data obtained from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the authors examine how characteristics of the workplace and institutional environment affect variation in the incidence of workers' charges of sex and race discrimination and in the subset of discrimination claims that are verified by EEOC investigators. The findings indicate that workplace conditions, including size, composition, and minority management, affect workers' charges as well as verified claims; the latter are also affected by institutional factors, such as affirmative action requirements, subsidiary status, and industrial sector. These results suggest that internal workplace conditions affect both workers' and regulatory agents' interpretations of potentially discriminatory experiences, while institutional conditions matter only for regulatory agents' interpretations of those events.

  15. Life satisfaction and trauma in clinical and non-clinical children living in a war-torn environment: A discriminant analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veronese, Guido; Pepe, Alessandro

    2017-07-01

    The aim of this work was to discriminate between healthy children and children at risk of developing mental impairments by evaluating the impact on contextual and individual factors of a context characterized by war. We tested the hypothesis that a linear discriminant function composed of trauma, life satisfaction, and affect balance has the power to classify the children as community or clinical referred. Membership of the clinical-referred group was associated with poorer life satisfaction and higher levels of trauma. Community-referred profiles were associated with lesser trauma. Perceived life satisfaction regarding family and school was the main contributor to the discriminant function.

  16. Cancer, comorbidity and workplace discrimination: The US experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gehrke, Amanda K; Feuerstein, Michael

    2017-09-01

    Cancer survivors with comorbidities have more work-related challenges than cancer survivors without these other health problems. This study evaluated how these cancer survivors with comorbidities are faring under a newly revised workplace discrimination policy, which better accounts for the episodic nature of chronic illnesses. The sample included 18-64 year olds with a history of cancer who filed allegations of workplace discrimination in 2009-2011 (N = 1.291) in the US. Multivariable logistic regressions were used. Cancer survivors with comorbidities were more likely to file discrimination claims related to the terms of their employment (OR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.04-1.80) than cancer survivors without comorbidities. Terms of employment-related claims were more likely to be ruled in favour of cancer survivors (versus employers), regardless of comorbidity status (OR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.06-1.96). Despite this policy reform, alleged discrimination related to terms of employment existed at higher rates in cancer survivors with concurrent health problems. If employment is a goal in this high-risk group, replication of findings in other countries, studies on potential mechanisms and development of innovative interventions in these higher risk cases are warranted. Efforts should be made to mitigate the impact of these comorbid health problems on work-related function. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

  17. Price discrimination in two-sided markets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Zhang

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The use of a price discrimination strategy is an important tool in competition. It can hurt firms and benefit consumers in a one-sided market. However, in two-sided markets, its primary goal is to attract more agents or increase profits. Here, the performance of a second-degree price discrimination strategy in the context of duopoly two-sided platforms is analysed. Two exogenous variables, which include the discount rate and the price discrimination threshold, are used in order to examine whether the price discrimination strategy could help two-sided platforms achieve their objective, which is to maximise their market value. Three cases are considered, and we demonstrate that the price discrimination strategy cannot attract more agents and at the same time increase the profits; a lower price discrimination threshold cannot ensure larger markets shares; a higher discount rate is detrimental to the profit of a platform. However, this is good for its market shares. Moreover, discriminative pricing increases the competition.

  18. Gender Discrimination as a Function of Stereotypic and Counterstereotypic Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lobel, Thalma E.; Mashraki-Pedhatzur, Sharon; Mantzur, Ahmed; Libby, Sharon

    2000-01-01

    Investigated seventh graders' gender discrimination from a cross-cultural perspective. Israeli Arabs and Jews rated two hypothetical male candidates for class representative (who were generally masculine or outstandingly feminine) on their beliefs about their ability to be elected and their willingness to interact with them. Both groups…

  19. Quantum-state comparison and discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayashi, A.; Hashimoto, T.; Horibe, M.

    2018-05-01

    We investigate the performance of discrimination strategy in the comparison task of known quantum states. In the discrimination strategy, one infers whether or not two quantum systems are in the same state on the basis of the outcomes of separate discrimination measurements on each system. In some cases with more than two possible states, the optimal strategy in minimum-error comparison is that one should infer the two systems are in different states without any measurement, implying that the discrimination strategy performs worse than the trivial "no-measurement" strategy. We present a sufficient condition for this phenomenon to happen. For two pure states with equal prior probabilities, we determine the optimal comparison success probability with an error margin, which interpolates the minimum-error and unambiguous comparison. We find that the discrimination strategy is not optimal except for the minimum-error case.

  20. CAMAC differential pulse discriminator-counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tselikov, N.V.

    1987-01-01

    Differential pulse discriminator-counter for Moessbauer spectrometer is described. Input pulse setting into the channel is performed according to the following algorithm: the pulse is transmitted to the channel depending on the fact whether the preceding pulse has got to the discrimination window or not. The circuit does not contain delay lines, taking into account the delay of a signal from the upper level discriminator in relation to the lower level discriminator signal, which is connected with input pulse rise finite time, which in turn allows one to reduce the discriminator dead time up to the operation time of threshold circuits. The pulse counting rate is 150 MHz, input signal amplitude is ±3 V, dead time is 6 ns, delay time from input to output is 14 ns. The unit is made in CAMAC system

  1. Individual differences in attention strategies during detection, fine discrimination, and coarse discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hecker, Elizabeth A.; Serences, John T.; Srinivasan, Ramesh

    2013-01-01

    Interacting with the environment requires the ability to flexibly direct attention to relevant features. We examined the degree to which individuals attend to visual features within and across Detection, Fine Discrimination, and Coarse Discrimination tasks. Electroencephalographic (EEG) responses were measured to an unattended peripheral flickering (4 or 6 Hz) grating while individuals (n = 33) attended to orientations that were offset by 0°, 10°, 20°, 30°, 40°, and 90° from the orientation of the unattended flicker. These unattended responses may be sensitive to attentional gain at the attended spatial location, since attention to features enhances early visual responses throughout the visual field. We found no significant differences in tuning curves across the three tasks in part due to individual differences in strategies. We sought to characterize individual attention strategies using hierarchical Bayesian modeling, which grouped individuals into families of curves that reflect attention to the physical target orientation (“on-channel”) or away from the target orientation (“off-channel”) or a uniform distribution of attention. The different curves were related to behavioral performance; individuals with “on-channel” curves had lower thresholds than individuals with uniform curves. Individuals with “off-channel” curves during Fine Discrimination additionally had lower thresholds than those assigned to uniform curves, highlighting the perceptual benefits of attending away from the physical target orientation during fine discriminations. Finally, we showed that a subset of individuals with optimal curves (“on-channel”) during Detection also demonstrated optimal curves (“off-channel”) during Fine Discrimination, indicating that a subset of individuals can modulate tuning optimally for detection and discrimination. PMID:23678013

  2. Studies in genetic discrimination. Final progress report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1994-06-01

    We have screened 1006 respondents in a study of genetic discrimination. Analysis of these responses has produced evidence of the range of institutions engaged in genetic discrimination and demonstrates the impact of this discrimination on the respondents to the study. We have found that both ignorance and policy underlie genetic discrimination and that anti-discrimination laws are being violated.

  3. Cognitive flexibility modulates maturation and music-training-related changes in neural sound discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saarikivi, Katri; Putkinen, Vesa; Tervaniemi, Mari; Huotilainen, Minna

    2016-07-01

    Previous research has demonstrated that musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to non-musicians, and that these changes emerge with accumulation of training. Our aim was to investigate whether individual differences in executive functions predict training-related changes in neural sound discrimination. We measured event-related potentials induced by sound changes coupled with tests for executive functions in musically trained and non-trained children aged 9-11 years and 13-15 years. High performance in a set-shifting task, indexing cognitive flexibility, was linked to enhanced maturation of neural sound discrimination in both musically trained and non-trained children. Specifically, well-performing musically trained children already showed large mismatch negativity (MMN) responses at a young age as well as at an older age, indicating accurate sound discrimination. In contrast, the musically trained low-performing children still showed an increase in MMN amplitude with age, suggesting that they were behind their high-performing peers in the development of sound discrimination. In the non-trained group, in turn, only the high-performing children showed evidence of an age-related increase in MMN amplitude, and the low-performing children showed a small MMN with no age-related change. These latter results suggest an advantage in MMN development also for high-performing non-trained individuals. For the P3a amplitude, there was an age-related increase only in the children who performed well in the set-shifting task, irrespective of music training, indicating enhanced attention-related processes in these children. Thus, the current study provides the first evidence that, in children, cognitive flexibility may influence age-related and training-related plasticity of neural sound discrimination. © 2016 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. A simple neutron-gamma discriminating system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Zhongming; Xing Shilin; Wang Zhongmin

    1986-01-01

    A simple neutron-gamma discriminating system is described. A detector and a pulse shape discriminator are suitable for the neutron-gamma discriminating system. The influence of the constant fraction discriminator threshold energy on the neutron-gamma resolution properties is shown. The neutron-gamma timing distributions from an 241 Am-Be source, 2.5 MeV neutron beam and 14 MeV neutron beam are presented

  5. The monolithic double-threshold discriminator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baturitsky, M.A.; Dvornikov, O.V.

    1999-01-01

    A double-threshold discriminator capable of processing input signals of different duration is described. Simplicity of the discriminator circuitry makes it possible to embody the discriminator in multichannel ICs using microwave bipolar-JFET technology. Time walk is calculated to be less than 0.35 ns for the input ramp signals with rise times 25-100 ns and amplitudes 50 mV-1 V

  6. Discriminator setting and cocktail preparation for analysis of alpha and beta emitters in aqueous solution using liquid scintillation counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zaini Hamzah; Masitah Alias; Zaharudin Ahmad

    2011-01-01

    Liquid scintillation counting (LSC) is not only being used to measure pure beta emitters, but it can be used to measure both alpha and beta emitters simultaneously. Measurement of alpha and beta emitters in aqueous solution is done using a single sample. For the sample preparation, colorless detergent or emulsifier was used to incorporate the water into an organic based scintillator to produce a clear homogeneous solution, since this is the best form to give the highest count rate and detection efficiency. The instrument also need some attention, where after calibration, the LSC was set for the discriminator level which is suitable for measurement of both alpha and beta radiations. In this study, the focus is on the development of the best scintillation cocktail and establishes the best discriminator setting. From this study the best proportion of scintillation cocktail is 2:4:4 for water, toluene, and Triton-N101 (emulsifier) respectively and the best discriminator setting for alpha and beta counting are 120. (author)

  7. Age discrimination in the workplace: validation of the Nordic Age Discrimination Scale (NADS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Furunes, Trude; Mykletun, Reidar J

    2010-02-01

    Due to population ageing, older workers will make up a larger proportion of the workforce. However, recent reports show an increase in perceived age discrimination among older employees. Previous research found that age discrimination may result in negative feelings, such as uselessness, powerlessness and lower self-esteem. This study develops and validates a scale for monitoring age discrimination in the workplace. The validation study draws on three datasets, from Norway, Sweden and Finland respectively. The study provides a psychometric contribution to the study of the behavioral component of ageism.

  8. Nucleotide pools dictate the identity and frequency of ribonucleotide incorporation in mitochondrial DNA.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna-Karin Berglund

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Previous work has demonstrated the presence of ribonucleotides in human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and in the present study we use a genome-wide approach to precisely map the location of these. We find that ribonucleotides are distributed evenly between the heavy- and light-strand of mtDNA. The relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides reflect that DNA polymerase γ discriminates the four ribonucleotides differentially during DNA synthesis. The observed pattern is also dependent on the mitochondrial deoxyribonucleotide (dNTP pools and disease-causing mutations that change these pools alter both the absolute and relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides. Our analyses strongly suggest that DNA polymerase γ-dependent incorporation is the main source of ribonucleotides in mtDNA and argues against the existence of a mitochondrial ribonucleotide excision repair pathway in human cells. Furthermore, we clearly demonstrate that when dNTP pools are limiting, ribonucleotides serve as a source of building blocks to maintain DNA replication. Increased levels of embedded ribonucleotides in patient cells with disturbed nucleotide pools may contribute to a pathogenic mechanism that affects mtDNA stability and impair new rounds of mtDNA replication.

  9. Nucleotide pools dictate the identity and frequency of ribonucleotide incorporation in mitochondrial DNA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berglund, Anna-Karin; Navarrete, Clara; Engqvist, Martin K M; Hoberg, Emily; Szilagyi, Zsolt; Taylor, Robert W; Gustafsson, Claes M; Falkenberg, Maria; Clausen, Anders R

    2017-02-01

    Previous work has demonstrated the presence of ribonucleotides in human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and in the present study we use a genome-wide approach to precisely map the location of these. We find that ribonucleotides are distributed evenly between the heavy- and light-strand of mtDNA. The relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides reflect that DNA polymerase γ discriminates the four ribonucleotides differentially during DNA synthesis. The observed pattern is also dependent on the mitochondrial deoxyribonucleotide (dNTP) pools and disease-causing mutations that change these pools alter both the absolute and relative levels of incorporated ribonucleotides. Our analyses strongly suggest that DNA polymerase γ-dependent incorporation is the main source of ribonucleotides in mtDNA and argues against the existence of a mitochondrial ribonucleotide excision repair pathway in human cells. Furthermore, we clearly demonstrate that when dNTP pools are limiting, ribonucleotides serve as a source of building blocks to maintain DNA replication. Increased levels of embedded ribonucleotides in patient cells with disturbed nucleotide pools may contribute to a pathogenic mechanism that affects mtDNA stability and impair new rounds of mtDNA replication.

  10. Effects of Adaptation on Discrimination of Whisker Deflection Velocity and Angular Direction in a Model of the Barrel Cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mainak J. Patel

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Two important stimulus features represented within the rodent barrel cortex are velocity and angular direction of whisker deflection. Each cortical barrel receives information from thalamocortical (TC cells that relay information from a single whisker, and TC input is decoded by barrel regular-spiking (RS cells through a feedforward inhibitory architecture (with inhibition delivered by cortical fast-spiking or FS cells. TC cells encode deflection velocity through population synchrony, while deflection direction is encoded through the distribution of spike counts across the TC population. Barrel RS cells encode both deflection direction and velocity with spike rate, and are divided into functional domains by direction preference. Following repetitive whisker stimulation, system adaptation causes a weakening of synaptic inputs to RS cells and diminishes RS cell spike responses, though evidence suggests that stimulus discrimination may improve following adaptation. In this work, I construct a model of the TC, FS, and RS cells comprising a single barrel system—the model incorporates realistic synaptic connectivity and dynamics and simulates both angular direction (through the spatial pattern of TC activation and velocity (through synchrony of the TC population spikes of a deflection of the primary whisker, and I use the model to examine direction and velocity selectivity of barrel RS cells before and after adaptation. I find that velocity and direction selectivity of individual RS cells (measured over multiple trials sharpens following adaptation, but stimulus discrimination using a simple linear classifier by the RS population response during a single trial (a more biologically meaningful measure than single cell discrimination over multiple trials exhibits strikingly different behavior—velocity discrimination is similar both before and after adaptation, while direction classification improves substantially following adaptation. This is the

  11. Adaptation improves face trustworthiness discrimination

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruce D Keefe

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Adaptation to facial characteristics, such as gender and viewpoint, has been shown to both bias our perception of faces and improve facial discrimination. In this study, we examined whether adapting to two levels of face trustworthiness improved sensitivity around the adapted level. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated by morphing between trustworthy and untrustworthy prototypes, each generated by morphing eight trustworthy and eight untrustworthy faces respectively. In the first experiment, just-noticeable differences (JNDs were calculated for an untrustworthy face after participants adapted to an untrustworthy face, a trustworthy face, or did not adapt. In the second experiment, the three conditions were identical, except that JNDs were calculated for a trustworthy face. In the third experiment we examined whether adapting to an untrustworthy male face improved discrimination to an untrustworthy female face. In all experiments, participants completed a two-interval forced-choice adaptive staircase procedure, in which they judged which face was more untrustworthy. JNDs were derived from a psychometric function fitted to the data. Adaptation improved sensitivity to faces conveying the same level of trustworthiness when compared to no adaptation. When adapting to and discriminating around a different level of face trustworthiness there was no improvement in sensitivity and JNDs were equivalent to those in the no adaptation condition. The improvement in sensitivity was found to occur even when adapting to a face with different gender and identity. These results suggest that adaptation to facial trustworthiness can selectively enhance mechanisms underlying the coding of facial trustworthiness to improve perceptual sensitivity. These findings have implications for the role of our visual experience in the decisions we make about the trustworthiness of other individuals.

  12. Optical vortex discrimination with a transmission volume hologram

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gruneisen, Mark T [Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, NM 87117 (United States); Dymale, Raymond C; Stoltenberg, Kurt E [Boeing Company, PO Box 5670, Albuquerque, NM 87185 (United States); Steinhoff, Nicholas [Optical Sciences Company, 1341 S Sunkist St., Anaheim, CA 92806 (United States)

    2011-08-15

    Transmissive volume holograms are considered as mode-selective optical elements for the de-multiplexing and detecting of optical vortex modes according to the topological charge or mode number. Diffraction of vortex modes by a fundamental mode hologram is modeled using a physical optics model that treats the volume hologram as an angle-dependent transfer function. Diffracted irradiance profiles and diffraction efficiencies are calculated numerically as a function of the incident mode number. The results of the model are compared with experimental results obtained with volume holograms of fundamental and higher-order vortex modes. When considered as a function of detuning between the incident and recorded mode numbers, the measured diffraction efficiencies are found to be invariant with respect to the recorded mode number, provided that the order difference remains unchanged, and in close agreement with the predictions of the model. Measurements are made with a 1.3 mm thick permanent photo-thermo-refractive glass hologram and a 9 mm thick re-writable photorefractive lithium niobate hologram. A liquid-crystal spatial light modulator generates the vortex modes used to record and read the holograms. The results indicate that a simple volume hologram can discriminate between vortex modes; however, adjacent mode discrimination with low crosstalk would require a very thick hologram. Furthermore, broadening of the vortex angular spectrum, due to diffraction at a finite aperture, can adversely affect diffraction efficiencies.

  13. Optical vortex discrimination with a transmission volume hologram

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gruneisen, Mark T; Dymale, Raymond C; Stoltenberg, Kurt E; Steinhoff, Nicholas

    2011-01-01

    Transmissive volume holograms are considered as mode-selective optical elements for the de-multiplexing and detecting of optical vortex modes according to the topological charge or mode number. Diffraction of vortex modes by a fundamental mode hologram is modeled using a physical optics model that treats the volume hologram as an angle-dependent transfer function. Diffracted irradiance profiles and diffraction efficiencies are calculated numerically as a function of the incident mode number. The results of the model are compared with experimental results obtained with volume holograms of fundamental and higher-order vortex modes. When considered as a function of detuning between the incident and recorded mode numbers, the measured diffraction efficiencies are found to be invariant with respect to the recorded mode number, provided that the order difference remains unchanged, and in close agreement with the predictions of the model. Measurements are made with a 1.3 mm thick permanent photo-thermo-refractive glass hologram and a 9 mm thick re-writable photorefractive lithium niobate hologram. A liquid-crystal spatial light modulator generates the vortex modes used to record and read the holograms. The results indicate that a simple volume hologram can discriminate between vortex modes; however, adjacent mode discrimination with low crosstalk would require a very thick hologram. Furthermore, broadening of the vortex angular spectrum, due to diffraction at a finite aperture, can adversely affect diffraction efficiencies.

  14. Novel Strategy for Discrimination of Transcription Factor Binding Motifs Employing Mathematical Neural Network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugimoto, Asuka; Sumi, Takuya; Kang, Jiyoung; Tateno, Masaru

    2017-07-01

    Recognition in biological macromolecular systems, such as DNA-protein recognition, is one of the most crucial problems to solve toward understanding the fundamental mechanisms of various biological processes. Since specific base sequences of genome DNA are discriminated by proteins, such as transcription factors (TFs), finding TF binding motifs (TFBMs) in whole genome DNA sequences is currently a central issue in interdisciplinary biophysical and information sciences. In the present study, a novel strategy to create a discriminant function for discrimination of TFBMs by constituting mathematical neural networks (NNs) is proposed, together with a method to determine the boundary of signals (TFBMs) and noise in the NN-score (output) space. This analysis also leads to the mathematical limitation of discrimination in the recognition of features representing TFBMs, in an information geometrical manifold. Thus, the present strategy enables the identification of the whole space of TFBMs, right up to the noise boundary.

  15. WE-AB-202-02: Incorporating Regional Ventilation Function in Predicting Radiation Fibrosis After Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy for Lung Cancer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lan, F; Jeudy, J; Tseng, H; Zhou, J; D’Souza, W; Zhang, H [University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD (United States); Senan, S; Sornsen de Koste, J van [VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: To investigate the incorporation of pre-therapy regional ventilation function in predicting radiation fibrosis (RF) in stage III non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with concurrent thoracic chemoradiotherapy. Methods: 37 stage III NSCLC patients were retrospectively studied. Patients received one cycle of cisplatin-gemcitabine, followed by two to three cycles of cisplatin-etoposide concurrently with involved-field thoracic radiotherapy between 46 and 66 Gy (2 Gy per fraction). Pre-therapy regional ventilation images of the lung were derived from 4DCT via a density-change-based image registration algorithm with mass correction. RF was evaluated at 6-months post-treatment using radiographic scoring based on airway dilation and volume loss. Three types of ipsilateral lung metrics were studied: (1) conventional dose-volume metrics (V20, V30, V40, and mean-lung-dose (MLD)), (2) dose-function metrics (fV20, fV30, fV40, and functional mean-lung-dose (fMLD) generated by combining regional ventilation and dose), and (3) dose-subvolume metrics (sV20, sV30, sV40, and subvolume mean-lung-dose (sMLD) defined as the dose-volume metrics computed on the sub-volume of the lung with at least 60% of the quantified maximum ventilation status). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to evaluate the predictability of these metrics for RF. Results: In predicting airway dilation, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) values for (V20, MLD), (fV20, fMLD), and (sV20, and sMLD) were (0.76, 0.70), (0.80, 0.74) and (0.82, 0.80), respectively. The logistic regression p-values were (0.09, 0.18), (0.02, 0.05) and (0.004, 0.006), respectively. With regard to volume loss, the corresponding AUC values for these metrics were (0.66, 0.57), (0.67, 0.61) and (0.71, 0.69), and p-values were (0.95, 0.90), (0.43, 0.64) and (0.08, 0.12), respectively. Conclusion: The inclusion of regional ventilation function improved

  16. Discrimination Against Migrant Workers in Malaysia

    OpenAIRE

    Badarulzaman, Muhammad Hafiz; Ayub, Zainal A; Yusoff, Zuryati M; Wahab, Harlida A

    2016-01-01

    AbstractMigrant workers are often discriminated against in almost every aspect of life. Discrimination against them is due to irrational dislike of them and also negative perception towards them. It is alleged that migrant workers contribute to the crimes hike in Malaysia. Using doctrinal research methodology, this article discusses direct and perceptive discrimination against them. This article concludes that physical discriminations are mostly happened because ineffective enforcement of the...

  17. 28 CFR 35.149 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 35.149 Section... STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES Program Accessibility § 35.149 Discrimination prohibited. Except as... subjected to discrimination by any public entity. ...

  18. 29 CFR 500.9 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 500.9 Section 500.9 Labor... SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL WORKER PROTECTION General Provisions § 500.9 Discrimination prohibited. (a) It is a... Secretary alleging such discrimination. ...

  19. Fast differential pulse discriminator-counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shelevoj, K.D.

    1985-01-01

    The flowsheet of a differential pulse discriminator counter is described; the result of discrimination here is independent from the shape of the input pulse. Rate of the analysis of input pulses with minimum amplitude up to 0.3 mV coming out from the photomultiplier makes up 220 MHz. The flowsheet of the discriminator used in the system of photon counting for atmosphere probing is presented

  20. Discrimination and delusional ideation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Janssen, I.C.M.; Hanssen, M.S.S.; Bak, M.L.F.J.; Bijl, R.V.; Graaf, R. de; Vollebergh, W.A.M.; McKenzie, K.; Os, J. van

    2003-01-01

    Background In the UK and The Netherlands, people with high rates of psychosis are chronically exposed to discrimination. Aims To test whether perceived discrimination is associated longitudinally with onset of psychosis. Method A 3-year prospective study of cohorts with no history of psychosis and

  1. Comparison of model and human observer performance for detection and discrimination tasks using dual-energy x-ray images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Richard, Samuel; Siewerdsen, Jeffrey H.

    2008-01-01

    Model observer performance, computed theoretically using cascaded systems analysis (CSA), was compared to the performance of human observers in detection and discrimination tasks. Dual-energy (DE) imaging provided a wide range of acquisition and decomposition parameters for which observer performance could be predicted and measured. This work combined previously derived observer models (e.g., Fisher-Hotelling and non-prewhitening) with CSA modeling of the DE image noise-equivalent quanta (NEQ) and imaging task (e.g., sphere detection, shape discrimination, and texture discrimination) to yield theoretical predictions of detectability index (d ' ) and area under the receiver operating characteristic (A Z ). Theoretical predictions were compared to human observer performance assessed using 9-alternative forced-choice tests to yield measurement of A Z as a function of DE image acquisition parameters (viz., allocation of dose between the low- and high-energy images) and decomposition technique [viz., three DE image decomposition algorithms: standard log subtraction (SLS), simple-smoothing of the high-energy image (SSH), and anti-correlated noise reduction (ACNR)]. Results showed good agreement between theory and measurements over a broad range of imaging conditions. The incorporation of an eye filter and internal noise in the observer models demonstrated improved correspondence with human observer performance. Optimal acquisition and decomposition parameters were shown to depend on the imaging task; for example, ACNR and SSH yielded the greatest performance in the detection of soft-tissue and bony lesions, respectively. This study provides encouraging evidence that Fourier-based modeling of NEQ computed via CSA and imaging task provides a good approximation to human observer performance for simple imaging tasks, helping to bridge the gap between Fourier metrics of detector performance (e.g., NEQ) and human observer performance.

  2. Discriminating Microbial Species Using Protein Sequence Properties and Machine Learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Shahib, Ali Al-; Gilbert, David; Breitling, Rainer

    2007-01-01

    Much work has been done to identify species-specific proteins in sequenced genomes and hence to determine their function. We assumed that such proteins have specific physico-chemical properties that will discriminate them from proteins in other species. In this paper, we examine the validity of this

  3. Dorso-Lateral Frontal Cortex of the Ferret Encodes Perceptual Difficulty during Visual Discrimination

    OpenAIRE

    Zhe Charles Zhou; Chunxiu Yu; Kristin K. Sellers; Flavio Fröhlich

    2016-01-01

    Visual discrimination requires sensory processing followed by a perceptual decision. Despite a growing understanding of visual areas in this behavior, it is unclear what role top-down signals from prefrontal cortex play, in particular as a function of perceptual difficulty. To address this gap, we investigated how neurons in dorso-lateral frontal cortex (dl-FC) of freely-moving ferrets encode task variables in a two-alternative forced choice visual discrimination task with high- and low-contr...

  4. Experienced and anticipated discrimination against people with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Milačić-Vidojević Ivona

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Aim of this research was to describe the nature, direction and severity of anticipated and experienced discrimination reported by people with schizophrenia. We applied interview to 50 patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia in two psychiatric hospitals in Belgrade. Discrimination was measured with discrimination and stigma scale (DISC which produce 3 subscores, positive experienced discrimination, negative experienced discrimination and anticipated discrimination. The same scale was used in cross-cultural research in 27 european countries. Results have shown that participants from Serbia do not recognize discrimination in all areas of life equally. The discrimination recognized is more frequentlly negative then positive and is associated with existentially important realms of life. Due to anticipated discrimination participants in our study prevent themselves from looking for a close relationship. Anticipated discrimination could not be predicted on the grounds of experienced, positive or negative discrimination.

  5. An example of multidimensional analysis: Discriminant analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lutz, P.

    1990-01-01

    Among the approaches on the data multi-dimensional analysis, lectures on the discriminant analysis including theoretical and practical aspects are presented. The discrimination problem, the analysis steps and the discrimination categories are stressed. Examples on the descriptive historical analysis, the discrimination for decision making, the demonstration and separation of the top quark are given. In the linear discriminant analysis the following subjects are discussed: Huyghens theorem, projection, discriminant variable, geometrical interpretation, case for g=2, classification method, separation of the top events. Criteria allowing the obtention of relevant results are included [fr

  6. Discrimination among adults with craniofacial conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Rachel M

    2014-01-01

    The primary goal of this study was to establish the level of perceived discrimination experienced by adults with congenital craniofacial conditions in Australia and to examine predictors of discrimination. Specifically, this study tested whether social support mediates the relationship between discrimination and health. Adults (n = 93) who had been treated at the Australian Craniofacial Unit, Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide for congenital craniofacial conditions (not including cleft lip and/or palate) completed questionnaires examining satisfaction with life, quality of life, anxiety and depression, self-esteem, satisfaction with social support, and satisfaction with appearance. A substantial minority of adults with congenital craniofacial conditions reported that they experience discrimination almost every day in a range of areas. Higher reports of discrimination were related to older age, being male, and less education. Other factors related to higher discrimination included lower levels of satisfaction with life, self-esteem, satisfaction with appearance and mental quality of life, as well as higher levels of anxiety and depression. Social support partially mediated the relationship between discrimination and mental health outcomes. The current study shows that discrimination experiences continue into adulthood confirming the importance of ensuring patients are well supported both by psychosocial services as well as within their own social support networks.

  7. School-Based Racial and Gender Discrimination among African American Adolescents: Exploring Gender Variation in Frequency and Implications for Adjustment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chavous, Tabbye M.; Griffin, Tiffany M.

    2012-01-01

    The present study examined school-based racial and gender discrimination experiences among African American adolescents in Grade 8 (n = 204 girls; n = 209 boys). A primary goal was exploring gender variation in frequency of both types of discrimination and associations of discrimination with academic and psychological functioning among girls and boys. Girls and boys did not vary in reported racial discrimination frequency, but boys reported more gender discrimination experiences. Multiple regression analyses within gender groups indicated that among girls and boys, racial discrimination and gender discrimination predicted higher depressive symptoms and school importance and racial discrimination predicted self-esteem. Racial and gender discrimination were also negatively associated with grade point average among boys but were not significantly associated in girls’ analyses. Significant gender discrimination X racial discrimination interactions resulted in the girls’ models predicting psychological outcomes and in boys’ models predicting academic achievement. Taken together, findings suggest the importance of considering gender- and race-related experiences in understanding academic and psychological adjustment among African American adolescents. PMID:22837794

  8. Decision theory for discrimination-aware classification

    KAUST Repository

    Kamiran, Faisal

    2012-12-01

    Social discrimination (e.g., against females) arising from data mining techniques is a growing concern worldwide. In recent years, several methods have been proposed for making classifiers learned over discriminatory data discriminationaware. However, these methods suffer from two major shortcomings: (1) They require either modifying the discriminatory data or tweaking a specific classification algorithm and (2) They are not flexible w.r.t. discrimination control and multiple sensitive attribute handling. In this paper, we present two solutions for discrimination-aware classification that neither require data modification nor classifier tweaking. Our first and second solutions exploit, respectively, the reject option of probabilistic classifier(s) and the disagreement region of general classifier ensembles to reduce discrimination. We relate both solutions with decision theory for better understanding of the process. Our experiments using real-world datasets demonstrate that our solutions outperform existing state-ofthe-art methods, especially at low discrimination which is a significant advantage. The superior performance coupled with flexible control over discrimination and easy applicability to multiple sensitive attributes makes our solutions an important step forward in practical discrimination-aware classification. © 2012 IEEE.

  9. Discriminative Relational Topic Models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ning; Zhu, Jun; Xia, Fei; Zhang, Bo

    2015-05-01

    Relational topic models (RTMs) provide a probabilistic generative process to describe both the link structure and document contents for document networks, and they have shown promise on predicting network structures and discovering latent topic representations. However, existing RTMs have limitations in both the restricted model expressiveness and incapability of dealing with imbalanced network data. To expand the scope and improve the inference accuracy of RTMs, this paper presents three extensions: 1) unlike the common link likelihood with a diagonal weight matrix that allows the-same-topic interactions only, we generalize it to use a full weight matrix that captures all pairwise topic interactions and is applicable to asymmetric networks; 2) instead of doing standard Bayesian inference, we perform regularized Bayesian inference (RegBayes) with a regularization parameter to deal with the imbalanced link structure issue in real networks and improve the discriminative ability of learned latent representations; and 3) instead of doing variational approximation with strict mean-field assumptions, we present collapsed Gibbs sampling algorithms for the generalized relational topic models by exploring data augmentation without making restricting assumptions. Under the generic RegBayes framework, we carefully investigate two popular discriminative loss functions, namely, the logistic log-loss and the max-margin hinge loss. Experimental results on several real network datasets demonstrate the significance of these extensions on improving prediction performance.

  10. Discriminant analysis of plasma fusion data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kardaun, O.J.W.F.; Kardaun, J.W.P.F.; Itoh, S.; Itoh, K.

    1992-06-01

    Several discriminant analysis methods has been applied and compared to predict the type of ELM's in H-mode discharges: (a) quadratic discriminant analysis (linear discriminant analysis being a special case), (b) discrimination by non-parametric (kernel-) density estimates, and (c) discrimination by a product multinomial model on a discretised scale. Practical evaluation was performed using SAS in the first two cases, and INDEP, a standard FORTRAN program, initially developed for medical applications, in the last case. We give here a flavour of the approach and its results. In summary, discriminant analysis can be used as a useful descriptive method of specifying regions where particular types of plasma discharges can be produced. Parametric methods have the advantage of a rather compact mathematical formulation . Pertinent graphical representations are useful to make the theory and the results more palatable to the experimental physicists. (J.P.N.)

  11. Universal programmable devices for unambiguous discrimination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Chi; Ying Mingsheng; Qiao, Bo

    2006-01-01

    We discuss the problem of designing unambiguous programmable discriminators for any n unknown quantum states in an m-dimensional Hilbert space. The discriminator is a fixed measurement that has two kinds of input registers: the program registers and the data register. The quantum state in the data register is what users want to identify, which is confirmed to be among the n states in program registers. The task of the discriminator is to tell the users which state stored in the program registers is equivalent to that in the data register. First, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for judging an unambiguous programmable discriminator. Then, if m=n, we present an optimal unambiguous programmable discriminator for them, in the sense of maximizing the worst-case probability of success. Finally, we propose a universal unambiguous programmable discriminator for arbitrary n quantum states

  12. Ethnic identity, racial discrimination and attenuated psychotic symptoms in an urban population of emerging adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anglin, Deidre M; Lui, Florence; Espinosa, Adriana; Tikhonov, Aleksandr; Ellman, Lauren

    2018-06-01

    Studies suggest strong ethnic identity generally protects against negative mental health outcomes associated with racial discrimination. In light of evidence suggesting racial discrimination may enhance psychosis risk in racial and ethnic minority (REM) populations, the present study explored the relationship between ethnic identity and attenuated positive psychotic symptoms (APPS) and whether ethnic identity moderates the association between racial discrimination and these symptoms. A sample of 644 non-help-seeking REM emerging adults was administered self-report inventories for psychosis risk, experiences of discrimination and ethnic identity. Latent class analysis was applied to determine the nature and number of ethnic identity types in this population. The direct association between ethnic identity and APPS and the interaction between ethnic identity and racial discrimination on APPS were determined in linear regression analyses. Results indicated three ethnic identity classes (very low, moderate to high and very high). Ethnic identity was not directly related to APPS; however, it was related to APPS under racially discriminating conditions. Specifically, participants who experienced discrimination in the moderate to high or very high ethnic identity classes reported fewer symptoms than participants who experienced discrimination in the very low ethnic identity class. Strong ethnic group affiliation and connection may serve a protective function for psychosis risk in racially discriminating environments and contexts among REM young adults. The possible social benefits of strong ethnic identification among REM youth who face racial discrimination should be explored further in clinical high-risk studies. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

  13. Modifications of Surface Wave Discrimination Filter Based on the Polarization Properties

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kutlu, Y. A.; Sayil, N.

    2007-01-01

    The polarization properties of Love and Rayleigh waves are utilized to design Surface Wave Discrimination Filter. Filtering process for a selected window length and moving interval is that the amplitudes at each frequency on vertical, radial and transverse components are weighted according to how closely the theoretical three-dimensional particle motion pattern. In this study, weighted functions have been modified for epicenteral distances smaller than about 2200 km to corresponding with angular distribution of polarization parameters obtained from computed synthetic seismograms. Modified Surface Wave Discrimination Filter has been tested on synthetic seismograms and digital three-components broadband records at Trabzon earthquake station

  14. 5 CFR 950.110 - Prohibited discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 5 Administrative Personnel 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Prohibited discrimination. 950.110 Section 950.110 Administrative Personnel OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (CONTINUED) CIVIL SERVICE... PRIVATE VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS General Provisions § 950.110 Prohibited discrimination. Discrimination for...

  15. Cognitive Strategies and Physical Activity in Older Adults: A Discriminant Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nathalie André

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. Although a number of studies have examined sociodemographic, psychosocial, and environmental determinants of the level of physical activity (PA for older people, little attention has been paid to the predictive power of cognitive strategies for independently living older adults. However, cognitive strategies have recently been considered to be critical in the management of day-to-day living. Methods. Data were collected from 243 men and women aged 55 years and older living in France using face-to-face interviews between 2011 and 2013. Results. A stepwise discriminant analysis selected five predictor variables (age, perceived health status, barriers’ self-efficacy, internal memory, and attentional control strategies of the level of PA. The function showed that the rate of correct prediction was 73% for the level of PA. The calculated discriminant function based on the five predictor variables is useful for detecting individuals at high risk of lapses once engaged in regular PA. Conclusions. This study highlighted the need to consider cognitive functions as a determinant of the level of PA and, more specifically, those cognitive functions related to executive functions (internal memory and attentional control, to facilitate the maintenance of regular PA. These results are discussed in relation to successful aging.

  16. Preamplifier-discriminator for a photomultiplier

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Groshev, V.Ya.; Zabrodskij, V.A.

    1986-01-01

    A simple preamplifier-discriminator intended for processing fluxes of low-energy X-radiation in combination with a scintillation detector is suggested. Utilization of the 564LE5 microcircuit in the preamplifier-discriminator permits to use general supply, with digital logical microcircuits. Operation of the preamplifier-discriminator during some years as a part of the RPP-1 X-ray densitometer displayed good repeatibility of parameters of the device and its reliability

  17. Effects of X-ray radiation on complex visual discrimination learning and social recognition memory in rats.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Catherine M Davis

    Full Text Available The present report describes an animal model for examining the effects of radiation on a range of neurocognitive functions in rodents that are similar to a number of basic human cognitive functions. Fourteen male Long-Evans rats were trained to perform an automated intra-dimensional set shifting task that consisted of their learning a basic discrimination between two stimulus shapes followed by more complex discrimination stages (e.g., a discrimination reversal, a compound discrimination, a compound reversal, a new shape discrimination, and an intra-dimensional stimulus discrimination reversal. One group of rats was exposed to head-only X-ray radiation (2.3 Gy at a dose rate of 1.9 Gy/min, while a second group received a sham-radiation exposure using the same anesthesia protocol. The irradiated group responded less, had elevated numbers of omitted trials, increased errors, and greater response latencies compared to the sham-irradiated control group. Additionally, social odor recognition memory was tested after radiation exposure by assessing the degree to which rats explored wooden beads impregnated with either their own odors or with the odors of novel, unfamiliar rats; however, no significant effects of radiation on social odor recognition memory were observed. These data suggest that rodent tasks assessing higher-level human cognitive domains are useful in examining the effects of radiation on the CNS, and may be applicable in approximating CNS risks from radiation exposure in clinical populations receiving whole brain irradiation.

  18. Effects of X-ray radiation on complex visual discrimination learning and social recognition memory in rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Catherine M; Roma, Peter G; Armour, Elwood; Gooden, Virginia L; Brady, Joseph V; Weed, Michael R; Hienz, Robert D

    2014-01-01

    The present report describes an animal model for examining the effects of radiation on a range of neurocognitive functions in rodents that are similar to a number of basic human cognitive functions. Fourteen male Long-Evans rats were trained to perform an automated intra-dimensional set shifting task that consisted of their learning a basic discrimination between two stimulus shapes followed by more complex discrimination stages (e.g., a discrimination reversal, a compound discrimination, a compound reversal, a new shape discrimination, and an intra-dimensional stimulus discrimination reversal). One group of rats was exposed to head-only X-ray radiation (2.3 Gy at a dose rate of 1.9 Gy/min), while a second group received a sham-radiation exposure using the same anesthesia protocol. The irradiated group responded less, had elevated numbers of omitted trials, increased errors, and greater response latencies compared to the sham-irradiated control group. Additionally, social odor recognition memory was tested after radiation exposure by assessing the degree to which rats explored wooden beads impregnated with either their own odors or with the odors of novel, unfamiliar rats; however, no significant effects of radiation on social odor recognition memory were observed. These data suggest that rodent tasks assessing higher-level human cognitive domains are useful in examining the effects of radiation on the CNS, and may be applicable in approximating CNS risks from radiation exposure in clinical populations receiving whole brain irradiation.

  19. Effects of X-Ray Radiation on Complex Visual Discrimination Learning and Social Recognition Memory in Rats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Catherine M.; Roma, Peter G.; Armour, Elwood; Gooden, Virginia L.; Brady, Joseph V.; Weed, Michael R.; Hienz, Robert D.

    2014-01-01

    The present report describes an animal model for examining the effects of radiation on a range of neurocognitive functions in rodents that are similar to a number of basic human cognitive functions. Fourteen male Long-Evans rats were trained to perform an automated intra-dimensional set shifting task that consisted of their learning a basic discrimination between two stimulus shapes followed by more complex discrimination stages (e.g., a discrimination reversal, a compound discrimination, a compound reversal, a new shape discrimination, and an intra-dimensional stimulus discrimination reversal). One group of rats was exposed to head-only X-ray radiation (2.3 Gy at a dose rate of 1.9 Gy/min), while a second group received a sham-radiation exposure using the same anesthesia protocol. The irradiated group responded less, had elevated numbers of omitted trials, increased errors, and greater response latencies compared to the sham-irradiated control group. Additionally, social odor recognition memory was tested after radiation exposure by assessing the degree to which rats explored wooden beads impregnated with either their own odors or with the odors of novel, unfamiliar rats; however, no significant effects of radiation on social odor recognition memory were observed. These data suggest that rodent tasks assessing higher-level human cognitive domains are useful in examining the effects of radiation on the CNS, and may be applicable in approximating CNS risks from radiation exposure in clinical populations receiving whole brain irradiation. PMID:25099152

  20. Onondaga Noun Incorporation: Some Notes on the Interdependence of Syntax and Semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woodbury, Hanni

    1975-01-01

    In Onondaga and all northern Iroquoian languages, nouns can be incorporated into verbs. The function of this is semantic as well as syntactic. It is semantic in that the sense of an incorporated noun will be narrower than its unincorporated counterpart regardless of modifiers. Incorporation changes the transformational structure of the sentence.…

  1. Preliminary test of cigarette nicotine discrimination threshold in non-dependent versus dependent smokers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perkins, Kenneth A; Kunkle, Nicole; Karelitz, Joshua L; Perkins, K A; Kunkle, N; Karelitz, J L

    2017-06-01

    Despite its potential for understanding tobacco dependence, behavioral discrimination of nicotine via smoking has not been formally examined as a function of nicotine dependence level. Spectrum research cigarettes were used to compare non-dependent with dependent smokers on the lowest content of nicotine they could discriminate (i.e., "threshold"). Dependent (n=21; 16M, 5F) or non-dependent (n=7; 4M, 3F) smokers were tested on ability to discriminate between cigarettes with nicotine contents of 17, 11, 5, 2, and 1mg/g, one per session, from an "ultra-low" cigarette with 0.4mg/g (all had 9-10mg "tar"). All abstained from smoking overnight prior to sessions, and number of sessions was determined by the lowest nicotine content they could reliably discriminate from the ultra-low on >80% of trials (i.e., ≥5 of 6). Subjective perceptions and cigarette choice behavior were also assessed and related to discrimination behavior. Discrimination thresholds (and most perceptions) did not differ between dependent and non-dependent smokers, with median thresholds of 11mg/g for both subgroups. Yet, "liking" and puff choice for threshold cigarettes were greater in dependent but not non-dependent smokers, while cigarettes with nicotine contents below threshold did not support "liking" or choice in both groups. In sum, this preliminary study suggests threshold for discriminating nicotine via smoking may not vary by dependence level, and further study is needed to confirm that cigarettes unable to be discriminated are also not reinforcing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. 29 CFR 32.26 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Discrimination prohibited. 32.26 Section 32.26 Labor Office... RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE Accessibility § 32.26 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified... discrimination under any program or activity to which this part applies. ...

  3. 22 CFR 142.15 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 142.15 Section 142... PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE Accessibility § 142.15 Discrimination... be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity to which the part applies. ...

  4. Social identity change in response to discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perozzo, Cristina; de la Sablonnière, Roxane; Auger, Emilie; Caron-Diotte, Mathieu

    2016-09-01

    This study investigated the conditions under which discrimination can lead to social identity changes among members of a minority group. Both positive and negative relations between perceptions of discrimination and social identity have previously been reported. To explain the conflicting results and understand the complex reality of members of stigmatized groups, we argue that group-based emotions (e.g., group-based dissatisfaction) and ambiguity of discrimination cues (i.e., overt vs. ambiguous) need to be considered. We hypothesized that perceptions of discrimination would play a moderating role between group-based dissatisfaction and social identity change in a context of ambiguous, but not of overt, discrimination. The sample was comprised of 151 Arab Muslims living in the province of Quebec. Participants read fictitious newspaper articles portraying either overt (n = 76) or ambiguous (n = 75) discrimination towards in-group members. Results revealed that for participants in the overt discrimination condition, only group-based dissatisfaction was positively associated with social identity change. In contrast, for the participants in the ambiguous discrimination condition, those who perceived little discrimination and felt low group-based dissatisfaction reported a decrease in social identity. However, those who perceived low group discrimination and felt high group-based dissatisfaction reported a positive social identity change. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  5. Sexual Discrimination in the Use of Letters of Recommendation: A Case of Reverse Discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kryger, Barbara Rosenblum; Shikiar, Richard

    1978-01-01

    Possible sexual discrimination was examined in the use of letters of recommendation. Female applicants were preferred over male applicants in terms of proceeding with an interview, thus demonstrating a case of reverse discrimination. (Author)

  6. Discrimination of bromodeoxyuridine labelled and unlabelled mitotic cells in flow cytometric bromodeoxyuridine/DNA analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, P O; Larsen, J K; Christensen, I J

    1994-01-01

    Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) labelled and unlabelled mitotic cells, respectively, can be discriminated from interphase cells using a new method, based on immunocytochemical staining of BrdUrd and flow cytometric four-parameter analysis of DNA content, BrdUrd incorporation, and forward and orthogonal...... light scatter. The method was optimized using the human leukemia cell lines HL-60 and K-562. Samples of 10(5) ethanol-fixed cells were treated with pepsin/HCl and stained as a nuclear suspension with anti-BrdUrd antibody, FITC-conjugated secondary antibody, and propidium iodide. Labelled mitoses could...

  7. A neural network approach to discrimination between defects and calyces in oranges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salvatore Ingrassia

    1993-11-01

    Full Text Available The problem of automatic discrimination among pictures concerning either defects or calyces in oranges is approached. The method here proposed is based on a statistical analysis of the grey-levels and the shape of calyces in the pictures. Some suitable statistical indices are considered and the discriminant function is designed by means of a neural network on the basis of a suitable vector representation of the images. Numerical experiments give 5 misclassifications in a set of 52 images, where only three defects have been classified as calyces.

  8. General description of discriminating quantum operations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Ke-Jia; Gao Fei; Qin Su-Juan; Wen Qiao-Yan; Zhu Ping; Guo Fen-Zhuo

    2011-01-01

    The discrimination of quantum operations plays a key role in quantum information and computation. Unlike discriminating quantum states, it has some special properties which can be carried out in practice. In this paper, we provide a general description of discriminating quantum operations. Concretely speaking, we describe the distinguishability between quantum operations using a measure called operator fidelity. It is shown that, employing the theory of operator fidelity, we can not only verify some previous results to discriminate unitary operations, but also exhibit a more general discrimination condition. We further apply our results to analysing the security of some quantum cryptographic protocols and discuss the realization of our method using well-developed quantum algorithms. (general)

  9. Two-Stage Regularized Linear Discriminant Analysis for 2-D Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Jianhua; Shi, Lei; Zhu, Ji

    2015-08-01

    Fisher linear discriminant analysis (LDA) involves within-class and between-class covariance matrices. For 2-D data such as images, regularized LDA (RLDA) can improve LDA due to the regularized eigenvalues of the estimated within-class matrix. However, it fails to consider the eigenvectors and the estimated between-class matrix. To improve these two matrices simultaneously, we propose in this paper a new two-stage method for 2-D data, namely a bidirectional LDA (BLDA) in the first stage and the RLDA in the second stage, where both BLDA and RLDA are based on the Fisher criterion that tackles correlation. BLDA performs the LDA under special separable covariance constraints that incorporate the row and column correlations inherent in 2-D data. The main novelty is that we propose a simple but effective statistical test to determine the subspace dimensionality in the first stage. As a result, the first stage reduces the dimensionality substantially while keeping the significant discriminant information in the data. This enables the second stage to perform RLDA in a much lower dimensional subspace, and thus improves the two estimated matrices simultaneously. Experiments on a number of 2-D synthetic and real-world data sets show that BLDA+RLDA outperforms several closely related competitors.

  10. 45 CFR 1151.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1151.21 Section 1151.21... HUMANITIES NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS NONDISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF HANDICAP Discrimination Prohibited Accessibility § 1151.21 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because...

  11. 14 CFR 1251.103 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1251.103 Section... OF HANDICAP General Provisions § 1251.103 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified... of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which receives Federal...

  12. 22 CFR 142.11 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 142.11 Section 142... PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE Employment Practices § 142.11 Discrimination... discrimination in employment under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. (2) A...

  13. 22 CFR 217.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 217.21 Section 217... Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because a recipient's facilities within the... excluded from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity...

  14. 14 CFR 1251.300 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1251.300 Section... OF HANDICAP Accessibility § 1251.300 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall... benefits of, be excluded from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any...

  15. 38 CFR 18.404 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited... Provisions § 18.404 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the... subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which receives Federal financial assistance. (b...

  16. 34 CFR 104.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 104.4 Section 104.4... ASSISTANCE General Provisions § 104.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person... otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activitiy which receives Federal financial...

  17. 38 CFR 18.421 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited... Accessibility § 18.421 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because a recipient's... from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity to...

  18. Experienced discrimination amongst European old citizens

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van den Heuvel, Wim J. A.; van Santvoort, Marc M.

    2011-01-01

    This study analyses the experienced age discrimination of old European citizens and the factors related to this discrimination. Differences in experienced discrimination between old citizens of different European countries are explored. Data from the 2008 ESS survey are used. Old age is defined as

  19. Incorporating functionalized polyethylene glycol lipids into reprecipitated conjugated polymer nanoparticles for bioconjugation and targeted labeling of cells

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kandel, Prakash K.; Fernando, Lawrence P.; Ackroyd, P. Christine; Christensen, Kenneth A.

    2011-03-01

    We report a simple and rapid method to prepare extremely bright, functionalized, stable, and biocompatible conjugated polymer nanoparticles incorporating functionalized polyethylene glycol (PEG) lipids by reprecipitation. These nanoparticles retain the fundamental spectroscopic properties of conjugated polymer nanoparticles prepared without PEG lipid, but demonstrate greater hydrophilicity and quantum yield compared to unmodified conjugated polymer nanoparticles. The sizes of these nanoparticles, as determined by TEM, were 21-26 nm. Notably, these nanoparticles were prepared with several PEG lipid functional end groups, including biotin and carboxy moieties that can be easily conjugated to biomolecules. We have demonstrated the availability of these end groups for functionalization using the interaction of biotin PEG lipid conjugated polymer nanoparticles with streptavidin. Biotinylated PEG lipid conjugated polymer nanoparticles bound streptavidin-linked magnetic beads, while carboxy and methoxy PEG lipid modified nanoparticles did not. Similarly, biotinylated PEG lipid conjugated polymer nanoparticles bound streptavidin-coated glass slides and could be visualized as diffraction-limited spots, while nanoparticles without PEG lipid or with non-biotin PEG lipid end groups were not bound. To demonstrate that nanoparticle functionalization could be used for targeted labelling of specific cellular proteins, biotinylated PEG lipid conjugated polymer nanoparticles were bound to biotinylated anti-CD16/32 antibodies on J774A.1 cell surface receptors, using streptavidin as a linker. This work represents the first demonstration of targeted delivery of conjugated polymer nanoparticles and demonstrates the utility of these new nanoparticles for fluorescence based imaging and sensing.We report a simple and rapid method to prepare extremely bright, functionalized, stable, and biocompatible conjugated polymer nanoparticles incorporating functionalized polyethylene glycol (PEG

  20. Designing pedagogy incorporating executive function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wasserman, Theodore

    2013-01-01

    The National Academy of Neuropsychology defines clinical neuropsychology as "a sub-field of psychology concerned with the applied science of brain-behavior relationships. Clinical neuropsychologists use this knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and/or rehabilitation of patients across the lifespan with neurological, medical, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions, as well as other cognitive and learning disorders" (National Academy of Neuropsychology, 2011 ). Pediatric neuropsychologists have long been concerned about another area of functionality, making their recommendations educationally relevant. This article describes accommodated metacognitive instruction, a pedagogy based on cognitive neuropsychological principles of learning and used to instruct college faculty on a methodology for teaching in all-inclusive environments.

  1. Anti-discrimination Analysis Using Privacy Attack Strategies

    KAUST Repository

    Ruggieri, Salvatore

    2014-09-15

    Social discrimination discovery from data is an important task to identify illegal and unethical discriminatory patterns towards protected-by-law groups, e.g., ethnic minorities. We deploy privacy attack strategies as tools for discrimination discovery under hard assumptions which have rarely tackled in the literature: indirect discrimination discovery, privacy-aware discrimination discovery, and discrimination data recovery. The intuition comes from the intriguing parallel between the role of the anti-discrimination authority in the three scenarios above and the role of an attacker in private data publishing. We design strategies and algorithms inspired/based on Frèchet bounds attacks, attribute inference attacks, and minimality attacks to the purpose of unveiling hidden discriminatory practices. Experimental results show that they can be effective tools in the hands of anti-discrimination authorities.

  2. Discrimination against Black Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aloud, Ashwaq; Alsulayyim, Maryam

    2016-01-01

    Discrimination is a structured way of abusing people based on racial differences, hence barring them from accessing wealth, political participation and engagement in many spheres of human life. Racism and discrimination are inherently rooted in institutions in the society, the problem has spread across many social segments of the society including…

  3. 49 CFR 27.7 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 27.7 Section 27.7... OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE General § 27.7 Discrimination prohibited. (a... participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or...

  4. 18 CFR 1307.5 - Employment discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... discrimination. 1307.5 Section 1307.5 Conservation of Power and Water Resources TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY NONDISCRIMINATION WITH RESPECT TO HANDICAP § 1307.5 Employment discrimination. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or...

  5. 45 CFR 84.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 84.21 Section 84.21... Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because a recipient's facilities are... in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity to which this part...

  6. 45 CFR 605.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 605.21 Section 605.21... Accessibility § 605.21 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because a recipient's... from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity to...

  7. 28 CFR 42.520 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 42.520 Section...-Implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Accessibility § 42.520 Discrimination prohibited... participation in, or otherwise subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal...

  8. 45 CFR 605.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 605.4 Section 605.4... Provisions § 605.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the... subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which receives Federal financial assistance. (b...

  9. 10 CFR 1040.63 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1040.63 Section 1040.63 Energy... Provisions § 1040.63 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the... subjected to discrimination under any program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance from...

  10. 5 CFR 900.704 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 5 Administrative Personnel 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 900.704... Federally Assisted Programs of the Office of Personnel Management § 900.704 Discrimination prohibited. (a..., be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity...

  11. 45 CFR 1170.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1170.21 Section 1170.21... ASSISTED PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES Employment Practices § 1170.21 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment...

  12. 14 CFR 1251.200 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1251.200 Section... OF HANDICAP Employment Practices § 1251.200 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any...

  13. 45 CFR 1110.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1110.3 Section 1110.3... HUMANITIES GENERAL NONDISCRIMINATION IN FEDERALLY ASSISTED PROGRAMS § 1110.3 Discrimination prohibited. (a... from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected, to discrimination under...

  14. 18 CFR 1307.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination... NONDISCRIMINATION WITH RESPECT TO HANDICAP § 1307.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped... otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity to which this part applies. (b...

  15. 43 CFR 17.203 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 17.203 Section... Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination...

  16. 45 CFR 84.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 84.4 Section 84.4... § 84.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of... discrimination under any program or activity which receives Federal financial assistance. (b) Discriminatory...

  17. 22 CFR 142.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 142.4 Section 142.4... OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE General Provisions § 142.4 Discrimination... participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or...

  18. 45 CFR 1170.31 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1170.31 Section 1170.31... ASSISTED PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES Accessibility § 1170.31 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped... denied the benefits of, be excluded from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination...

  19. 34 CFR 104.21 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 104.21 Section 104.21... ASSISTANCE Accessibility § 104.21 Discrimination prohibited. No qualified handicapped person shall, because a... excluded from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity...

  20. 45 CFR 1151.31 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1151.31 Section 1151.31... HUMANITIES NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS NONDISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF HANDICAP Discrimination Prohibited Employment § 1151.31 Discrimination prohibited. (a) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the...

  1. Fast neutron-gamma discrimination on neutron emission profile measurement on JT-60U

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ishii, K.; Okamoto, A.; Kitajima, S.; Sasao, M.; Shinohara, K.; Ishikawa, M.; Baba, M.; Isobe, M.

    2010-01-01

    A digital signal processing (DSP) system is applied to stilbene scintillation detectors of the multichannel neutron emission profile monitor in JT-60U. Automatic analysis of the neutron-γ pulse shape discrimination is a key issue to diminish the processing time in the DSP system, and it has been applied using the two-dimensional (2D) map. Linear discriminant function is used to determine the dividing line between neutron events and γ-ray events on a 2D map. In order to verify the validity of the dividing line determination, the pulse shape discrimination quality is evaluated. As a result, the γ-ray contamination in most of the beam heating phase was negligible compared with the statistical error with 10 ms time resolution.

  2. Perceived Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Adjustment among Ethnically Diverse College Students: Family and Peer Support as Protective Factors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juang, Linda; Ittel, Angela; Hoferichter, Frances; Gallarin, Miriam

    2016-01-01

    Adopting a risk and resilience perspective, the current study examined whether family cohesion and peer support functioned as protective factors against the negative effects of racial/ethnic discrimination by peers. The sample included 142 ethnically diverse college students. The results showed that while greater perceived discrimination was…

  3. Support vector machine with a Pearson VII function kernel for discriminating halophilic and non-halophilic proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Guangya; Ge, Huihua

    2013-10-01

    Understanding of proteins adaptive to hypersaline environment and identifying them is a challenging task and would help to design stable proteins. Here, we have systematically analyzed the normalized amino acid compositions of 2121 halophilic and 2400 non-halophilic proteins. The results showed that halophilic protein contained more Asp at the expense of Lys, Ile, Cys and Met, fewer small and hydrophobic residues, and showed a large excess of acidic over basic amino acids. Then, we introduce a support vector machine method to discriminate the halophilic and non-halophilic proteins, by using a novel Pearson VII universal function based kernel. In the three validation check methods, it achieved an overall accuracy of 97.7%, 91.7% and 86.9% and outperformed other machine learning algorithms. We also address the influence of protein size on prediction accuracy and found the worse performance for small size proteins might be some significant residues (Cys and Lys) were missing in the proteins. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  4. Microfluidic platform for efficient Nanodisc assembly, membrane protein incorporation, and purification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wade, James H; Jones, Joshua D; Lenov, Ivan L; Riordan, Colleen M; Sligar, Stephen G; Bailey, Ryan C

    2017-08-22

    The characterization of integral membrane proteins presents numerous analytical challenges on account of their poor activity under non-native conditions, limited solubility in aqueous solutions, and low expression in most cell culture systems. Nanodiscs are synthetic model membrane constructs that offer many advantages for studying membrane protein function by offering a native-like phospholipid bilayer environment. The successful incorporation of membrane proteins within Nanodiscs requires experimental optimization of conditions. Standard protocols for Nanodisc formation can require large amounts of time and input material, limiting the facile screening of formation conditions. Capitalizing on the miniaturization and efficient mass transport inherent to microfluidics, we have developed a microfluidic platform for efficient Nanodisc assembly and purification, and demonstrated the ability to incorporate functional membrane proteins into the resulting Nanodiscs. In addition to working with reduced sample volumes, this platform simplifies membrane protein incorporation from a multi-stage protocol requiring several hours or days into a single platform that outputs purified Nanodiscs in less than one hour. To demonstrate the utility of this platform, we incorporated Cytochrome P450 into Nanodiscs of variable size and lipid composition, and present spectroscopic evidence for the functional active site of the membrane protein. This platform is a promising new tool for membrane protein biology and biochemistry that enables tremendous versatility for optimizing the incorporation of membrane proteins using microfluidic gradients to screen across diverse formation conditions.

  5. Enhanced Hydrothermal Stability and Catalytic Performance of HKUST-1 by Incorporating Carboxyl-Functionalized Attapulgite.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Bo; Yin, Xiao-Qian; Liu, Xiao-Qin; Li, Xing-Yang; Sun, Lin-Bing

    2016-06-29

    Much attention has been paid to metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) due to their large surface areas, tunable functionality, and diverse structure. Nevertheless, most reported MOFs show poor hydrothermal stability, which seriously hinders their applications. Here a strategy is adopted to tailor the properties of MOFs by means of incorporating carboxyl-functionalized natural clay attapulgite (ATP) into HKUST-1, a well-known MOF. A new type of hybrid material was thus fabricated from the hybridization of HKUST-1 and ATP. Our results indicated that the hydrothermal stability of the MOFs as well as the catalytic performance was apparently improved. The frameworks of HKUST-1 were severely destroyed after hydrothermal treatment (hot water vapor, 60 °C), while that of the hybrid materials was maintained. For the hybrid materials containing 8.4 wt % of ATP, the surface area reached 1302 m(2)·g(-1) and was even higher than that of pristine HKUST-1 (1245 m(2)·g(-1)). In the ring-opening of styrene oxide, the conversion reached 98.9% at only 20 min under catalysis from the hybrid material, which was obviously higher than that over pristine HKUST-1 (80.9%). Moreover, the hybrid materials showed excellent reusability and the catalytic activity was recoverable without loss after six cycles. Our materials provide promising candidates for heterogeneous catalysis owing to the good catalytic activity and reusability.

  6. Role of amygdala central nucleus in feature negative discriminations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holland, Peter C.

    2012-01-01

    Consistent with a popular theory of associative learning, the Pearce-Hall (1980) model, the surprising omission of expected events enhances cue associability (the ease with which a cue may enter into new associations), across a wide variety of behavioral training procedures. Furthermore, previous experiments from this laboratory showed that these enhancements are absent in rats with impaired function of the amygdala central nucleus (CeA). A notable exception to these assertions is found in feature negative (FN) discrimination learning, in which a “target” stimulus is reinforced when it is presented alone but nonreinforced when it is presented in compound with another, “feature” stimulus. According to the Pearce-Hall model, reinforcer omission on compound trials should enhance the associability of the feature relative to control training conditions. However, prior experiments have shown no evidence that CeA lesions affect FN discrimination learning. Here we explored this apparent contradiction by evaluating the hypothesis that the surprising omission of an event confers enhanced associability on a cue only if that cue itself generates the disconfirmed prediction. Thus, in a FN discrimination, the surprising omission of the reinforcer on compound trials would enhance the associability of the target stimulus but not that of the feature. Our data confirmed this hypothesis, and showed this enhancement to depend on intact CeA function, as in other procedures. The results are consistent with modern reformulations of both cue and reward processing theories that assign roles for both individual and aggregate error terms in associative learning. PMID:22889308

  7. 50 CFR 3.1 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 50 Wildlife and Fisheries 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 3.1 Section 3.1... PROVISIONS NONDISCRIMINATION-CONTRACTS, PERMITS, AND USE OF FACILITIES § 3.1 Discrimination prohibited. No..., be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to any form of discrimination or segregation...

  8. 28 CFR 42.203 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 42.203 Section...) of the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979 § 42.203 Discrimination prohibited. (a) No person in... participation in, be denied the benefits of, be subjected to discrimination under, or denied employment in...

  9. 38 CFR 18.411 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited... Practices § 18.411 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or activity to which...

  10. 24 CFR 8.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 8.4... DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT General Provisions § 8.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) No... in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or...

  11. 5 CFR 900.404 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 5 Administrative Personnel 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 900.404... § 900.404 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. A person in the United States shall not, on the ground... be otherwise subjected to discrimination under, a program to which this subpart applies. (b) Specific...

  12. 34 CFR 104.11 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 104.11 Section 104.11... ASSISTANCE Employment Practices § 104.11 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or...

  13. 13 CFR 112.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 112.3... ASSISTED PROGRAMS OF SBA-EFFECTUATION OF TITLE VI OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 § 112.3 Discrimination... be otherwise subjected to discrimination by any business or other activity. (b) Specific...

  14. 29 CFR 502.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 502.3 Section 502.3 Labor... IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT (SUSPENDED 6-29-2009) General Provisions § 502.3 Discrimination prohibited. (a... Department regulation promulgated pursuant to sec. 218 of the INA. (b) Allegations of discrimination against...

  15. 18 CFR 705.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination... Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or... discrimination under, any program to which this part applies. (b) Specific discriminatory actions prohibited. (1...

  16. 28 CFR 42.510 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 42.510 Section...-Implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Employment § 42.510 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall on the basis of handicap be subjected to discrimination...

  17. 29 CFR 32.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Discrimination prohibited. 32.4 Section 32.4 Labor Office of... FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE General Provisions § 32.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No... denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which...

  18. 10 CFR 1040.66 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1040.66 Section 1040.66 Energy... Practices § 1040.66 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination employment under any program or activity to...

  19. 22 CFR 217.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 217.4 Section 217.4... PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE General Provisions § 217.4 Discrimination... participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or...

  20. 28 CFR 42.503 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 42.503 Section...-Implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 General Provisions § 42.503 Discrimination... from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any...

  1. 45 CFR 605.11 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 605.11 Section 605.11... Employment Practices § 605.11 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or...

  2. 43 CFR 34.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 34.4 Section 34... DURING CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF THE ALASKA NATURAL GAS TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM § 34.4 Discrimination... part applies. (b) Specific actions in which discrimination is prohibited. No person shall directly or...

  3. 10 CFR 1040.71 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1040.71 Section 1040.71 Energy... § 1040.71 Discrimination prohibited. No handicapped person shall, because a recipient's facilities are... in, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity that receives or benefits from...

  4. Oxygen adsorption and incorporation at irradiated GaN(0001) and GaN(0001¯) surfaces: First-principles density-functional calculations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Qiang; Selloni, Annabella; Myers, T. H.; Doolittle, W. Alan

    2006-11-01

    Density functional theory calculations of oxygen adsorption and incorporation at the polar GaN(0001) and GaN(0001¯) surfaces have been carried out to explain the experimentally observed reduced oxygen concentration in GaN samples grown by molecular beam epitaxy in the presence of high energy (˜10keV) electron beam irradiation [Myers , J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 18, 2295 (2000)]. Using a model in which the effect of the irradiation is to excite electrons from the valence to the conduction band, we find that both the energy cost of incorporating oxygen impurities in deeper layers and the oxygen adatom diffusion barriers are significantly reduced in the presence of the excitation. The latter effect leads to a higher probability for two O adatoms to recombine and desorb, and thus to a reduced oxygen concentration in the irradiated samples, consistent with experimental observations.

  5. Women Status and their Discrimination

    OpenAIRE

    PEŠKOVÁ, Pavlína

    2008-01-01

    My work deal with women status and their discrimination. Chapter one contains women status in different historical periods and development of their status to bigger equal with men. There is also written about present feminist trends. Chapter two is about women discrimination. There is about women´ job discrimination, job segregation according to gender and inequality in payment. There is also written about women status at home and unequal duties at home among family mates. Chapter three is ab...

  6. Digital pulse shape discrimination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miller, L. F.; Preston, J.; Pozzi, S.; Flaska, M.; Neal, J.

    2007-01-01

    Pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) has been utilised for about 40 years as a method to obtain estimates for dose in mixed neutron and photon fields. Digitizers that operate close to GHz are currently available at a reasonable cost, and they can be used to directly sample signals from photomultiplier tubes. This permits one to perform digital PSD rather than the traditional, and well-established, analogous techniques. One issue that complicates PSD for neutrons in mixed fields is that the light output characteristics of typical scintillators available for PSD, such as BC501A, vary as a function of energy deposited in the detector. This behaviour is more easily accommodated with digital processing of signals than with analogous signal processing. Results illustrate the effectiveness of digital PSD. (authors)

  7. Discrimination in Textbooks

    OpenAIRE

    大津, 尚志

    1996-01-01

    In this paper, I deal with the issues which concern discriminations in textbooks.In America, they have paid special attentions to these problems since 1960's. They made guidelines for textbooks to check various kinds of discriminative descriptions and tried to make textbooks to meet these standards. In this respects I would examine the present states about textbooks in America and would compare them to the Japanese ones. That would be useful, I believe, when we consider these issues in Japan.

  8. Non-discrimination and equality of women

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Oostland, Rolanda Carina

    2006-01-01

    Non-discrimination is considered to be a cornerstone of the human rights framework of the United Nations. Already in the UN Charter of 1945 it is stated that human rights should be promoted without discrimination as to, amongst other things, sex. This principle of non-discrimination on the ground of

  9. 24 CFR 6.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 6.4... COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1974 General Provisions § 6.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) Section 109... benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part...

  10. 29 CFR 32.12 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Discrimination prohibited. 32.12 Section 32.12 Labor Office... § 32.12 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped individual shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or activity to which...

  11. 49 CFR 374.101 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 374.101 Section 374.101... REGULATIONS Discrimination in Operations of Interstate Motor Common Carriers of Passengers § 374.101 Discrimination prohibited. No motor common carrier of passengers subject to 49 U.S.C. subtitle IV, part B shall...

  12. 29 CFR 34.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Discrimination prohibited. 34.3 Section 34.3 Labor Office of... THE JOB TRAINING PARTNERSHIP ACT OF 1982, AS AMENDED (JTPA) General Provisions § 34.3 Discrimination... participation in JTPA, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, subjected to discrimination...

  13. 6 CFR 21.5 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 6 Domestic Security 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 21.5 Section 21.5... FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY § 21.5 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No person in... participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under, any program to...

  14. 45 CFR 84.11 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 84.11 Section 84.11... § 84.11 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or activity to which this...

  15. 10 CFR 1040.13 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1040.13 Section 1040.13 Energy..., as Amended; and Section 401 of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 § 1040.13 Discrimination... benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under any program to which this subpart applies...

  16. 24 CFR 1.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1.4... DEVELOPMENT-EFFECTUATION OF TITLE VI OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 § 1.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a... excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination...

  17. 49 CFR 21.5 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 21.5 Section 21.5... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION-EFFECTUATION OF TITLE VI OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 § 21.5 Discrimination... discrimination under, any program to which this part applies. (b) Specific discriminatory actions prohibited: (1...

  18. 22 CFR 217.11 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 22 Foreign Relations 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 217.11 Section 217... Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. (1) No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be subjected to discrimination in employment under any program or activity to which this part applies. (2) A...

  19. 38 CFR 18.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited... THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 General § 18.3 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No person in the..., be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under any program to which...

  20. Weight Discrimination and Unhealthy Eating-related Behaviors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutin, Angelina; Robinson, Eric; Daly, Michael; Terracciano, Antonio

    2016-01-01

    Individuals with obesity often experience unfair treatment because of their body weight. Such experiences are associated with binge eating, but less is known about its association with other eating-related behaviors and whether these relations are specific to discrimination based on weight or extend to other attributions for discrimination. The present research uses a large national sample (N=5,129) to examine whether weight discrimination is associated with diet and meal rhythmicity, in addition to overeating, and whether these associations generalize to nine other attributions for discrimination. We found that in addition to overeating, weight discrimination was associated with more frequent consumption of convenience foods and less regular meal timing. These associations were generally similar across sex, age, and race. Discrimination based on ancestry, gender, age, religion, and physical disability were also associated with overeating, which suggests that overeating may be a general coping response to discrimination. Unfair treatment because of body weight is associated with unhealthy eating-related behaviors, which may be one pathway through which weight discrimination increases risk for weight gain and obesity. PMID:26877216

  1. The influence of tongue strength on oral viscosity discrimination acuity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steele, Catriona M

    2018-06-01

    The ability to generate tongue pressures is widely considered to be critical for liquid bolus propulsion in swallowing. It has been proposed that the application of tongue pressure may also serve the function of collecting sensory information regarding bolus viscosity (resistance to flow). In this study, we explored the impact of age-related reductions in tongue strength on oral viscosity discrimination acuity. The experiment employed a triangle test discrimination protocol with an array of xanthan-gum thickened liquids in the mildly to moderately thick consistency range. A sample of 346 healthy volunteers was recruited, with age ranging from 12 to 86 (164 men, 182 women). On average, participants were able to detect a 0.29-fold increase in xanthan-gum concentration, corresponding to a 0.5-fold increase in viscosity at 50/s. Despite having significantly reduced tongue strength on maximum isometric tongue-palate pressure tasks, and regardless of sex, older participants in this study showed no reductions in viscosity discrimination acuity. In this article, the relationship between tongue strength and the ability to discriminate small differences in liquid viscosity during oral processing is explored. Given that tongue strength declines with age in healthy adults and is also reduced in individuals with dysphagia, it is interesting to determine whether reduced tongue strength might contribute to difficulties in evaluating liquid viscosity during the oral stage of swallowing. Using an array of mildly to moderately thick xanthan-gum thickened liquids, this experiment failed to find any evidence that reductions in tongue strength influence oral viscosity discrimination acuity. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. Exhaustive Search of Elemental Combinations for Geochemical Discrimination of Tsunami deposits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuwatani, T.; Nagata, K.; Okada, M.; Watanabe, T.; Ogawa, Y.; Tsuchiya, N.

    2013-12-01

    Tsunami deposits are important for assessment of tsunami hazard. Many diagnostic signatures and identification criteria for past tsunami deposits are proposed, including geomorphological, stratigraphical, sedimentological, archaeological, anthropological, macro- and micropalaeontological evidences. However identification is still difficult because their properties depend on local and temporal situations of deposition and its subsequent weathering and diagenesis. Here, we focus geochemical discrimination of tsunami deposits using bulk chemical compositions. Geochemical discrimination is now recognized as an useful proxy, especially in the case that other proxies cannot be used. Precise discrimination is expected if we select appropriate combination of elements, since some of elements might have characteristic patterns distinguishing tsunami deposits from other sediments. In this study, we try to establish the criteria for the discrimination of 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami deposits and their background marine sedimentary rocks, using two powerful methodologies of information science: one is a support vector machine (SVM) classifier which is used for determining the appropriate decision plane which divides unknown samples into tsunami deposits and non-tsunami sediments in compositional space, where basis vector is composition of each element, and the other is a cross validation (CV) technique which is used for evaluate the discrimination performance of the SVM for each combination of elements use for discrimination. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a supervised clustering method, which developed in the machine learning and pattern recognition from the 1990s (Vapnik, 1998). It classifies unknown high-dimensional input vector data into several groups by decision function called as maximal margin hyperplane. The maximal margin hyperplane is determined based on training data sets, which are composed of known input vectors and output labels, and it is not only the farthest from

  3. Sensitivity of Ocean Reflectance Inversion Models for Identifying and Discriminating Between Phytoplankton Functional Groups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Werdell, P. Jeremy; Ooesler, Collin S.

    2012-01-01

    The daily, synoptic images provided by satellite ocean color instruments provide viable data streams for observing changes in the biogeochemistrY of marine ecosystems. Ocean reflectance inversion models (ORMs) provide a common mechanism for inverting the "color" of the water observed a satellite into marine inherent optical properties (lOPs) through a combination of empiricism and radiative transfer theory. lOPs, namely the spectral absorption and scattering characteristics of ocean water and its dissolved and particulate constituents, describe the contents of the upper ocean, information critical for furthering scientific understanding of biogeochemical oceanic processes. Many recent studies inferred marine particle sizes and discriminated between phytoplankton functional groups using remotely-sensed lOPs. While all demonstrated the viability of their approaches, few described the vertical distributions of the water column constituents under consideration and, thus, failed to report the biophysical conditions under which their model performed (e.g., the depth and thickness of the phytoplankton bloom(s)). We developed an ORM to remotely identifY Noctiluca miliaris and other phytoplankton functional types using satellite ocean color data records collected in the northern Arabian Sea. Here, we present results from analyses designed to evaluate the applicability and sensitivity of the ORM to varied biophysical conditions. Specifically, we: (1) synthesized a series of vertical profiles of spectral inherent optical properties that represent a wide variety of bio-optical conditions for the northern Arabian Sea under aN Miliaris bloom; (2) generated spectral remote-sensing reflectances from these profiles using Hydrolight; and, (3) applied the ORM to the synthesized reflectances to estimate the relative concentrations of diatoms and N Miliaris for each example. By comparing the estimates from the inversion model to those from synthesized vertical profiles, we were able to

  4. Optimal state discrimination using particle statistics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bose, S.; Ekert, A.; Omar, Y.; Paunkovic, N.; Vedral, V.

    2003-01-01

    We present an application of particle statistics to the problem of optimal ambiguous discrimination of quantum states. The states to be discriminated are encoded in the internal degrees of freedom of identical particles, and we use the bunching and antibunching of the external degrees of freedom to discriminate between various internal states. We show that we can achieve the optimal single-shot discrimination probability using only the effects of particle statistics. We discuss interesting applications of our method to detecting entanglement and purifying mixed states. Our scheme can easily be implemented with the current technology

  5. Simple multifunction discriminator for multichannel triggers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maier, M.R.

    1982-10-01

    A simple version of a multifunction timing discriminator using only two integrated circuits is presented. It can be configured as a leading edge, a constant fraction, a zero cross or a dual threshold timing discriminator. Since so few parts are used, it is well suited for building multichannel timing discriminators. Two versions of this circuit are described: a quadruple multifunction discriminator and an octal constant fraction trigger. The different compromises made in these units are discussed. Results for walk and jitter obtained with these are presented and possible improvements are disussed

  6. Use of the discriminant Fourier-derived cepstrum with feature-level post-processing for surface electromyographic signal classification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Xinpu; Zhu, Xiangyang; Zhang, Dingguo

    2009-01-01

    Myoelectrical pattern classification is a crucial part in multi-functional prosthesis control. This paper investigates a discriminant Fourier-derived cepstrum (DFC) and feature-level post-processing (FLPP) to discriminate hand and wrist motions using the surface electromyographic signal. The Fourier-derived cepstrum takes advantage of the Fourier magnitude or sub-band power energy of signals directly and provides flexible use of spectral information changing with different motions. Appropriate cepstral coefficients are selected by a proposed separability criterion to construct DFC features. For the post-processing, FLPP which combines features from several analysis windows is used to improve the feature performance further. In this work, two classifiers (a linear discriminant classifier and quadratic discriminant classifier) without hyper-parameter optimization are employed to simplify the training procedure and avoid the possible bias of feature evaluation. Experimental results of the 11-motion problem show that the proposed DFC feature outperforms traditional features such as time-domain statistics and autoregressive-derived cepstrum in terms of the classification accuracy, and it is a promising method for the multi-functionality and high-accuracy control of myoelectric prostheses

  7. 43 CFR 27.3 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 27.3 Section 27... ISSUED UNDER TITLE II OF PUBLIC LAW 93-153 § 27.3 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. No person shall... through contractual or other arrangements, subject an individual to discrimination on the grounds of race...

  8. 10 CFR 19.32 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 10 Energy 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 19.32 Section 19.32 Energy... § 19.32 Discrimination prohibited. No person shall on the grounds of sex be excluded from participation in, be denied a license, be denied the benefit of, or be subjected to discrimination under any...

  9. 29 CFR 501.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 501.4 Section 501.4 Labor... IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT General Provisions § 501.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) A person may not... discrimination against any person under paragraph (a) of this section will be investigated by the WHD. Where the...

  10. 45 CFR 1203.4 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 1203.4 Section 1203.4... OF 1964 § 1203.4 Discrimination prohibited. (a) General. A person in the United States shall not, on... benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under, a program to which this part applies. (b...

  11. 14 CFR 271.9 - Discrimination prohibited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Discrimination prohibited. 271.9 Section... TRANSPORTATION § 271.9 Discrimination prohibited. (a) All air carriers receiving subsidy under this part shall comply with the following: (1) The Age Discrimination Act of 1975; (2) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and...

  12. Acute neuroinflammation impairs context discrimination memory and disrupts pattern separation processes in hippocampus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Czerniawski, Jennifer; Guzowski, John F

    2014-09-10

    Although it is known that immune system activation can impair cognition, no study to date has linked cognitive deficits during acute neuroinflammation to dysregulation of task-relevant neuronal ensemble activity. Here, we assessed both neural circuit activity and context discrimination memory retrieval, in a within-subjects design, of male rats given systemic administration of saline or lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Rats were exposed over several days to two similar contexts: one of which was paired with weak foot shock and the other was not. After reaching criteria for discriminative freezing, rats were given systemic LPS or saline injection and tested for retrieval of context discrimination 6 h later. Importantly, LPS administration produced an acute neuroinflammatory response in dorsal hippocampus at this time (as assessed by elevation of proinflammatory cytokine mRNA levels) and abolished retrieval of the previously acquired discrimination. The impact of neuroinflammation on hippocampal CA3 and CA1 neural circuit activity was assessed using the Arc/Homer1a cellular analysis of temporal activity by fluorescence in situ hybridization imaging method. Whereas the saline-treated subjects discriminated and had low overlap of hippocampal ensembles activated in the two contexts, LPS-treated subjects did not discriminate and had greater ensemble overlap (i.e., reduced orthogonalization). Additionally, retrieval of standard contextual fear conditioning, which does not require context discrimination, was not affected by pretesting LPS administration. Together, the behavioral and circuit analyses data provide compelling evidence that LPS administration impairs context discrimination memory by disrupting cellular pattern separation processes within the hippocampus, thus linking acute neuroinflammation to disruption of specific neural circuit functions and cognitive impairment. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/3412470-11$15.00/0.

  13. An ultra-high discrimination Y chromosome short tandem repeat multiplex DNA typing system.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erin K Hanson

    Full Text Available In forensic casework, Y chromosome short tandem repeat markers (Y-STRs are often used to identify a male donor DNA profile in the presence of excess quantities of female DNA, such as is found in many sexual assault investigations. Commercially available Y-STR multiplexes incorporating 12-17 loci are currently used in forensic casework (Promega's PowerPlex Y and Applied Biosystems' AmpFlSTR Yfiler. Despite the robustness of these commercial multiplex Y-STR systems and the ability to discriminate two male individuals in most cases, the coincidence match probabilities between unrelated males are modest compared with the standard set of autosomal STR markers. Hence there is still a need to develop new multiplex systems to supplement these for those cases where additional discriminatory power is desired or where there is a coincidental Y-STR match between potential male participants. Over 400 Y-STR loci have been identified on the Y chromosome. While these have the potential to increase the discrimination potential afforded by the commercially available kits, many have not been well characterized. In the present work, 91 loci were tested for their relative ability to increase the discrimination potential of the commonly used 'core' Y-STR loci. The result of this extensive evaluation was the development of an ultra high discrimination (UHD multiplex DNA typing system that allows for the robust co-amplification of 14 non-core Y-STR loci. Population studies with a mixed African American and American Caucasian sample set (n = 572 indicated that the overall discriminatory potential of the UHD multiplex was superior to all commercial kits tested. The combined use of the UHD multiplex and the Applied Biosystems' AmpFlSTR Yfiler kit resulted in 100% discrimination of all individuals within the sample set, which presages its potential to maximally augment currently available forensic casework markers. It could also find applications in human evolutionary

  14. Simple, standardized incorporation of genetic risk into non-genetic risk prediction tools for complex traits: coronary heart disease as an example

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin A Goldstein

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Genetic risk assessment is becoming an important component of clinical decision-making. Genetic Risk Scores (GRSs allow the composite assessment of genetic risk in complex traits. A technically and clinically pertinent question is how to most easily and effectively combine a GRS with an assessment of clinical risk derived from established non-genetic risk factors as well as to clearly present this information to patient and health care providers. Materials & Methods: We illustrate a means to combine a GRS with an independent assessment of clinical risk using a log-link function. We apply the method to the prediction of coronary heart disease (CHD in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC cohort. We evaluate different constructions based on metrics of effect change, discrimination, and calibration.Results: The addition of a GRS to a clinical risk score (CRS improves both discrimination and calibration for CHD in ARIC. Results are similar regardless of whether external vs. internal coefficients are used for the CRS, risk factor SNPs are included in the GRS, or subjects with diabetes at baseline are excluded. We outline how to report the construction and the performance of a GRS using our method and illustrate a means to present genetic risk information to subjects and/or their health care provider. Conclusion: The proposed method facilitates the standardized incorporation of a GRS in risk assessment.

  15. Radiological accidents: methodologies of radio nuclides dis incorporation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jimenez F, E. A.; Paredes G, L.; Cortes, A.

    2014-08-01

    Derived of the radioactive or nuclear material management, exists the risk that accidents can happen where people cases are presented with internal radioactive contamination, who will receive specialized medical care to accelerate the radioactive dis incorporation with the purpose of diminishing the absorbed dose and the associate biological effects. In this work treatments of radioactive dis incorporation were identified, in function of the radionuclide, radiation type, radioactive half life, biological half life, critical organ, ingestion duct and patient type. The factor time is decisive for the effectiveness of the selected treatment in the blockade stage (before the accident) or dis incorporation (after the accident); this factor is related with the radioactive and biological half lives. So to achieve dis incorporation efficiencies of more to 70%, the patient clinical treatment will begin before the first third of the biological half life of the radionuclide that generated the internal contamination. (Author)

  16. Discriminative sensing of DOPA enantiomers by cyclodextrin anchored graphene nanohybrids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ates, Salih; Zor, Erhan; Akin, Ilker; Bingol, Haluk; Alpaydin, Sabri; Akgemci, Emine G

    2017-06-01

    Discriminative sensing of chiral species with a convenient and robust system is a challenge in chemistry, pharmaceutics and particularly in biomedical science. Advanced nanohybrid materials for discrimination of these biologically active molecules can be developed by combination of individual obvious advantages of different molecular scaffolds. Herein, we report on the comparison of the performance of cyclodextrin functionalized graphene derivatives (x-CD/rGO, x: α-, β-, γ-) for discrimination of DOPA enantiomers. Within this respect, electrochemical measurements were conducted and the experimental results were compared to molecular docking method. Thanks to cavity size of γ-CD and the unique properties of graphene, rGO/γ-CD nanohybrid is capable of selective recognition of DOPA enantiomers. Limit of detection (LOD) value and sensitivity were determined as 15.9 μM and 0.2525 μA μM -1 for D-DOPA, and 14.9 μM and 0.6894 μA μM -1 for L-DOPA. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Frequency of discriminative sensory loss in the hand after stroke in a rehabilitation setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carey, Leeanne M; Matyas, Thomas A

    2011-02-01

    Somatosensory loss following stroke is common, with negative consequences for functional outcome. However, existing studies typically do not include quantitative measures of discriminative sensibility. The aim of this study was to quantify the proportion of stroke patients presenting with discriminative sensory loss of the hand in the post-acute rehabilitation phase. Prospective cohort study of stroke survivors presenting for rehabilitation. Fifty-one consecutive patients admitted to a metropolitan rehabilitation centre over a continuous 12-month period who met selection criteria. Quantitative measures of touch discrimination and limb position sense, with high re-test reliability, good discriminative test properties and objective criteria of abnormality, were employed. Both upper limbs were tested, in counterbalanced order. Impaired touch discrimination was identified in the hand contralateral to the lesion in 47% of patients, and in the ipsilesional hand in 16%. Forty-nine percent showed impaired limb position sense in the contralesional limb and 20% in the ipsilesional limb. Sixty-seven percent demonstrated impairment of at least one modality in the contralesional limb. Ipsilesional impairment was less severe. Discriminative sensory impairment was quantified in the contralesional hand in approximately half of stroke patients presenting for rehabilitation. A clinically significant number also experienced impairment in the ipsilesional "unaffected" hand.

  18. Hippocampal-cortical contributions to strategic exploration during perceptual discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voss, Joel L; Cohen, Neal J

    2017-06-01

    The hippocampus is crucial for long-term memory; its involvement in short-term or immediate expressions of memory is more controversial. Rodent hippocampus has been implicated in an expression of memory that occurs on-line during exploration termed "vicarious trial-and-error" (VTE) behavior. VTE occurs when rodents iteratively explore options during perceptual discrimination or at choice points. It is strategic in that it accelerates learning and improves later memory. VTE has been associated with activity of rodent hippocampal neurons, and lesions of hippocampus disrupt VTE and associated learning and memory advantages. Analogous findings of VTE in humans would support the role of hippocampus in active use of short-term memory to guide strategic behavior. We therefore measured VTE using eye-movement tracking during perceptual discrimination and identified relevant neural correlates with functional magnetic resonance imaging. A difficult perceptual-discrimination task was used that required visual information to be maintained during a several second trial, but with no long-term memory component. VTE accelerated discrimination. Neural correlates of VTE included robust activity of hippocampus and activity of a network of medial prefrontal and lateral parietal regions involved in memory-guided behavior. This VTE-related activity was distinct from activity associated with simply viewing visual stimuli and making eye movements during the discrimination task, which occurred in regions frequently associated with visual processing and eye-movement control. Subjects were mostly unaware of performing VTE, thus further distancing VTE from explicit long-term memory processing. These findings bridge the rodent and human literatures on neural substrates of memory-guided behavior, and provide further support for the role of hippocampus and a hippocampal-centered network of cortical regions in the immediate use of memory in on-line processing and the guidance of behavior. © 2017

  19. Semi-supervised learning for ordinal Kernel Discriminant Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérez-Ortiz, M; Gutiérrez, P A; Carbonero-Ruz, M; Hervás-Martínez, C

    2016-12-01

    Ordinal classification considers those classification problems where the labels of the variable to predict follow a given order. Naturally, labelled data is scarce or difficult to obtain in this type of problems because, in many cases, ordinal labels are given by a user or expert (e.g. in recommendation systems). Firstly, this paper develops a new strategy for ordinal classification where both labelled and unlabelled data are used in the model construction step (a scheme which is referred to as semi-supervised learning). More specifically, the ordinal version of kernel discriminant learning is extended for this setting considering the neighbourhood information of unlabelled data, which is proposed to be computed in the feature space induced by the kernel function. Secondly, a new method for semi-supervised kernel learning is devised in the context of ordinal classification, which is combined with our developed classification strategy to optimise the kernel parameters. The experiments conducted compare 6 different approaches for semi-supervised learning in the context of ordinal classification in a battery of 30 datasets, showing (1) the good synergy of the ordinal version of discriminant analysis and the use of unlabelled data and (2) the advantage of computing distances in the feature space induced by the kernel function. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. HIV-related stigma and self-disclosure: the mediating and moderating role of anticipated discrimination among people living with HIV/AIDS in Akure Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olley, B O; Ogunde, M J; Oso, P O; Ishola, A

    2016-01-01

    Although links between HIV-related stigma and self-disclosure of HIV status among people living with HIV have been well established, it is unclear whether levels of perceived discrimination are differentially associated with self-disclosure. The present study using a multi-factorial survey design investigated the role of stigma and other self-related factors (e.g., anticipated discrimination, self-esteem, HIV-related factors [e.g., drug use combination; knowledge of duration of HIV diagnosis] and socio-demographic factors [e.g., multiple spouse; age, gender, educational level] and psychological distress [depression]) in self-disclosure among People living with HIV/AIDs has been added (PLWHA) on follow-up management in State Specialist Hospital Akure, Nigeria. One hundred and thirty nine HIV/AIDS patients (49 males and 90 females) participated in the study. Mean age and mean time in months since diagnosis were 39.56 ± 10.26 and 37.78 ± 48.34, respectively. Four variables: multiple spouse, anticipated discrimination, HIV-related stigma and self-esteem were related to self-disclosure at (p discrimination mediated the relationship between self-esteem (Sobel test: z = 2.09, Aroian = 2.06, p  .05, self-esteem t (5, 137) = .59, p > .05 and anticipated discrimination were non-significant, suggesting a non-moderation effect of discrimination and disclosure. The results indicate that anticipated discrimination may impact HIV-related stigma to reduce self-disclosure among the PLWHAs in Akure, Nigeria. Interventions should incorporate anticipated discrimination in educational programs of HIV stigma in encouraging self-disclosure among PLWHAs.

  1. Discrimination ability of the Energy score

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pinson, Pierre; Tastu, Julija

    as appealing since being proper, we show that its discrimination ability may be limited when focusing on the dependence structure of multivariate probabilistic forecasts. For the case of multivariate Gaussian process, a theoretical upper for such discrimination ability is derived and discussed. This limited...... discrimination ability may eventually get compromised by computational and sampling issues, as dimension increases....

  2. Vicarious trial-and-error behavior and hippocampal cytochrome oxidase activity during Y-maze discrimination learning in the rat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Dan; Xu, Xiaojuan; Gonzalez-Lima, Francisco

    2006-03-01

    The present study investigated whether more vicarious trial-and-error (VTE) behavior, defined by head movement from one stimulus to another at a choice point during simultaneous discriminations, led to better visual discrimination learning in a Y-maze, and whether VTE behavior was a function of the hippocampus by measuring regional brain cytochrome oxidase (C.O.) activity, an index of neuronal metabolic activity. The results showed that the more VTEs a rat made, the better the rat learned the visual discrimination. Furthermore, both learning and VTE behavior during learning were correlated to C.O. activity in the hippocampus, suggesting that the hippocampus plays a role in VTE behavior during discrimination learning.

  3. Weight discrimination and unhealthy eating-related behaviors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutin, Angelina; Robinson, Eric; Daly, Michael; Terracciano, Antonio

    2016-07-01

    Individuals with obesity often experience unfair treatment because of their body weight. Such experiences are associated with binge eating, but less is known about its association with other eating-related behaviors and whether these relations are specific to discrimination based on weight or extend to other attributions for discrimination. The present research uses a large national sample (N = 5129) to examine whether weight discrimination is associated with diet and meal rhythmicity, in addition to overeating, and whether these associations generalize to nine other attributions for discrimination. We found that in addition to overeating, weight discrimination was associated with more frequent consumption of convenience foods and less regular meal timing. These associations were generally similar across sex, age, and race. Discrimination based on ancestry, gender, age, religion, and physical disability were also associated with overeating, which suggests that overeating may be a general coping response to discrimination. Unfair treatment because of body weight is associated with unhealthy eating-related behaviors, which may be one pathway through which weight discrimination increases risk for weight gain and obesity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Health care workplace discrimination and physician turnover.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nunez-Smith, Marcella; Pilgrim, Nanlesta; Wynia, Matthew; Desai, Mayur M; Bright, Cedric; Krumholz, Harlan M; Bradley, Elizabeth H

    2009-12-01

    To examine the association between physician race/ ethnicity, workplace discrimination, and physician job turnover. Cross-sectional, national survey conducted in 2006-2007 of practicing physicians (n = 529) randomly identified via the American Medical Association Masterfile and the National Medical Association membership roster. We assessed the relationships between career racial/ethnic discrimination at work and several career-related dependent variables, including 2 measures of physician turnover, career satisfaction, and contemplation of career change. We used standard frequency analyses, odds ratios and chi2 statistics, and multivariate logistic regression modeling to evaluate these associations. Physicians who self-identified as nonmajority were significantly more likely to have left at least 1 job because of workplace discrimination (black, 29%; Asian, 24%; other race, 21%; Hispanic/Latino, 20%; white, 9%). In multivariate models, having experienced racial/ethnic discrimination at work was associated with high job turnover (adjusted odds ratio, 2.7; 95% CI, 1.4-4.9). Among physicians who experienced workplace discrimination, only 45% of physicians were satisfied with their careers (vs 88% among those who had not experienced workplace discrimination, p value workplace discrimination, p value Workplace discrimination is associated with physician job turnover, career dissatisfaction, and contemplation of career change. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring for workplace discrimination and responding when opportunities for intervention and retention still exist.

  5. Binocular contrast discrimination needs monocular multiplicative noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Jian; Levi, Dennis M.

    2016-01-01

    The effects of signal and noise on contrast discrimination are difficult to separate because of a singularity in the signal-detection-theory model of two-alternative forced-choice contrast discrimination (Katkov, Tsodyks, & Sagi, 2006). In this article, we show that it is possible to eliminate the singularity by combining that model with a binocular combination model to fit monocular, dichoptic, and binocular contrast discrimination. We performed three experiments using identical stimuli to measure the perceived phase, perceived contrast, and contrast discrimination of a cyclopean sine wave. In the absence of a fixation point, we found a binocular advantage in contrast discrimination both at low contrasts (discrimination mechanisms: a nonlinear contrast transducer and multiplicative noise (MN). A binocular combination model (the DSKL model; Ding, Klein, & Levi, 2013b) was first fitted to both the perceived-phase and the perceived-contrast data sets, then combined with either the nonlinear contrast transducer or the MN mechanism to fit the contrast-discrimination data. We found that the best model combined the DSKL model with early MN. Model simulations showed that, after going through interocular suppression, the uncorrelated noise in the two eyes became anticorrelated, resulting in less binocular noise and therefore a binocular advantage in the discrimination task. Combining a nonlinear contrast transducer or MN with a binocular combination model (DSKL) provides a powerful method for evaluating the two putative contrast-discrimination mechanisms. PMID:26982370

  6. Applying linear discriminant analysis to predict groundwater redox conditions conducive to denitrification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, S. R.; Close, M. E.; Abraham, P.

    2018-01-01

    Diffuse nitrate losses from agricultural land pollute groundwater resources worldwide, but can be attenuated under reducing subsurface conditions. In New Zealand, the ability to predict where groundwater denitrification occurs is important for understanding the linkage between land use and discharges of nitrate-bearing groundwater to streams. This study assesses the application of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for predicting groundwater redox status for Southland, a major dairy farming region in New Zealand. Data cases were developed by assigning a redox status to samples derived from a regional groundwater quality database. Pre-existing regional-scale geospatial databases were used as training variables for the discriminant functions. The predictive accuracy of the discriminant functions was slightly improved by optimising the thresholds between sample depth classes. The models predict 23% of the region as being reducing at shallow depths (water table, and low-permeability clastic sediments. The coastal plains are an area of widespread groundwater discharge, and the soil and hydrology characteristics require the land to be artificially drained to render the land suitable for farming. For the improvement of water quality in coastal areas, it is therefore important that land and water management efforts focus on understanding hydrological bypassing that may occur via artificial drainage systems.

  7. Pigeons learn stimulus identity and stimulus relations when both serve as redundant, relevant cues during same-different discrimination training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibson, Brett M; Wasserman, Edward A

    2003-01-01

    The authors taught pigeons to discriminate displays of 16 identical items from displays of 16 nonidentical items. Unlike most same-different discrimination studies--where only stimulus relations could serve a discriminative function--both the identity of the items and the relations among the items were discriminative features of the displays. The pigeons learned about both stimulus identity and stimulus relations when these 2 sources of information served as redundant, relevant cues. In tests of associative competition, identity cues exerted greater stimulus control than relational cues. These results suggest that the pigeon can respond to both specific stimuli and general relations in the environment.

  8. INTERSECTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ravnbøl, Camilla Ida

    This paper adds a perspective to existing research on child protection by engaging in a debate on intersectional discrimination and its relationship to child protection. The paper has a twofold objective, (1) to further establish intersectionality as a concept to address discrimination against...... children, and (2) to illustrate the importance of addressing intersectionality within rights-based programmes of child protection....

  9. CAMAC-compatible differential pulse discriminator-counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tselikov, I.V.

    1988-01-01

    A differential pulse discriminator-counter for a Moessbauer spectrometer is described. Input pulses are collected according to the following algorithm; a pulse is admitted into the channel depending on whether or not the preceding pulse fell into the discrimination window. The circuit does not contain delay lines to allow for the delay lines to allow for the delay of the signal from the upper-level discriminator with respect to the signal from the lower-level discriminator due to the finite rise time of the input pulses, which makes it possible to reduce the dead time of the discriminator to the actuation time of the threshold circuits. The pulse count rate is 150 MHz, the input amplitude is +/-3 V, the dead time is 6 nsec, and the delay from input to output is 14 nsec. The unit is CAMAC-compatible

  10. Perceived discrimination, humiliation, and mental health: a mixed-methods study among Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keys, Hunter M; Kaiser, Bonnie N; Foster, Jennifer W; Burgos Minaya, Rosa Y; Kohrt, Brandon A

    2015-01-01

    Many Haitian migrants live and work as undocumented laborers in the Dominican Republic. This study examines the legacy of anti-Haitian discrimination in the Dominican Republic and association of discrimination with mental health among Haitian migrants. This study used mixed methods to generate hypotheses for associations between discrimination and mental health of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 Haitian and 18 Dominican community members and clinicians. One hundred and twenty-seven Haitian migrants participated in a pilot cross-sectional community survey. Instruments included culturally adapted Kreyòl versions of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and a locally developed function impairment scale. Haitian migrants described humiliation (imilyasyon) as a reason for mental distress and barrier to health care. Dominicans reported that discrimination (discriminación) was not a current social problem and attributed negative social interactions to sociocultural, behavioral, and biological differences between Dominicans and Haitians. These qualitative findings were supported in the quantitative analyses. Perceived discrimination was significantly associated with depression severity and functional impairment. Perceived mistreatment by Dominicans was associated with a 6.6-point increase in BDI score (90% confidence interval [CI]: 3.29, 9.9). Knowing someone who was interrogated or deported was associated with a 3.4-point increase in BAI score (90% CI: 0.22, 6.64). Both qualitative and quantitative methods suggest that perceived discrimination and the experience of humiliation contribute to Haitian migrant mental ill-health and limit access to health care. Future research should evaluate these associations and identify intervention pathways for both improved treatment access and reduction of discrimination-related health risk factors.

  11. Odour discrimination and identification are improved in early blindness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cuevas, Isabel; Plaza, Paula; Rombaux, Philippe; De Volder, Anne G; Renier, Laurent

    2009-12-01

    Previous studies showed that early blind humans develop superior abilities in the use of their remaining senses, hypothetically due to a functional reorganization of the deprived visual brain areas. While auditory and tactile functions have been investigated for long, little is known about the effects of early visual deprivation on olfactory processing. However, blind humans make an extensive use of olfactory information in their daily life. Here we investigated olfactory discrimination and identification abilities in early blind subjects and age-matched sighted controls. Three levels of cuing were used in the identification task, i.e., free-identification (no cue), categorization (semantic cues) and multiple choice (semantic and phonological cues). Early blind subjects significantly outperformed the controls in odour discrimination, free-identification and categorization. In addition, the larger group difference was observed in the free-identification as compared to the categorization and the multiple choice conditions. This indicated that a better access to the semantic information from odour perception accounted for part of the improved olfactory performances in odour identification in the blind. We concluded that early blind subjects have both improved perceptual abilities and a better access to the information stored in semantic memory than sighted subjects.

  12. ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW AND COURT PRACTICE IN CROATIA-INDIVIDUAL AND ASSOCIATIONAL ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CLAIM AS (INEFFICIENT MECHANISMS FOR LEGAL PROTECTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula Poretti

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In the paper basic legal sources of European and Croatian anti-discrimination law are presented. Special attention is given to Anti-discrimination Act from 2009 which was enacted with the aim to provide anti-discrimination legal framework as a guarantee of a high level of legal protection from different forms of discrimination in Croatian legal system. Individual and associational anti—discrimination claim as legal mechanisms for efficient legal protection are questioned. Also, along with the numeric indicators which are provided in order to illustrate practice of the courts, an overview of available inidividual and associational anti-discrimination claims through which proceedings in front of courts and other competent authorities were initiated in last few years is presented. Deficiencies in anti-discrimination law and problems of court practice in Croatia are detected. Defects which need to be eliminated in order to create preconditions for efficient legal protection from discrimination in Croatian legal system are highlighted.

  13. Linear discriminant analysis of character sequences using occurrences of words

    KAUST Repository

    Dutta, Subhajit; Chaudhuri, Probal; Ghosh, Anil

    2014-01-01

    Classification of character sequences, where the characters come from a finite set, arises in disciplines such as molecular biology and computer science. For discriminant analysis of such character sequences, the Bayes classifier based on Markov models turns out to have class boundaries defined by linear functions of occurrences of words in the sequences. It is shown that for such classifiers based on Markov models with unknown orders, if the orders are estimated from the data using cross-validation, the resulting classifier has Bayes risk consistency under suitable conditions. Even when Markov models are not valid for the data, we develop methods for constructing classifiers based on linear functions of occurrences of words, where the word length is chosen by cross-validation. Such linear classifiers are constructed using ideas of support vector machines, regression depth, and distance weighted discrimination. We show that classifiers with linear class boundaries have certain optimal properties in terms of their asymptotic misclassification probabilities. The performance of these classifiers is demonstrated in various simulated and benchmark data sets.

  14. Stability of auditory discrimination and novelty processing in physiological aging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raggi, Alberto; Tasca, Domenica; Rundo, Francesco; Ferri, Raffaele

    2013-01-01

    Complex higher-order cognitive functions and their possible changes with aging are mandatory objectives of cognitive neuroscience. Event-related potentials (ERPs) allow investigators to probe the earliest stages of information processing. N100, Mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a are auditory ERP components that reflect automatic sensory discrimination. The aim of the present study was to determine if N100, MMN and P3a parameters are stable in healthy aged subjects, compared to those of normal young adults. Normal young adults and older participants were assessed using standardized cognitive functional instruments and their ERPs were obtained with an auditory stimulation at two different interstimulus intervals, during a passive paradigm. All individuals were within the normal range on cognitive tests. No significant differences were found for any ERP parameters obtained from the two age groups. This study shows that aging is characterized by a stability of the auditory discrimination and novelty processing. This is important for the arrangement of normative for the detection of subtle preclinical changes due to abnormal brain aging.

  15. Linear discriminant analysis of character sequences using occurrences of words

    KAUST Repository

    Dutta, Subhajit

    2014-02-01

    Classification of character sequences, where the characters come from a finite set, arises in disciplines such as molecular biology and computer science. For discriminant analysis of such character sequences, the Bayes classifier based on Markov models turns out to have class boundaries defined by linear functions of occurrences of words in the sequences. It is shown that for such classifiers based on Markov models with unknown orders, if the orders are estimated from the data using cross-validation, the resulting classifier has Bayes risk consistency under suitable conditions. Even when Markov models are not valid for the data, we develop methods for constructing classifiers based on linear functions of occurrences of words, where the word length is chosen by cross-validation. Such linear classifiers are constructed using ideas of support vector machines, regression depth, and distance weighted discrimination. We show that classifiers with linear class boundaries have certain optimal properties in terms of their asymptotic misclassification probabilities. The performance of these classifiers is demonstrated in various simulated and benchmark data sets.

  16. Introduction to multivariate discrimination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kégl, Balázs

    2013-07-01

    Multivariate discrimination or classification is one of the best-studied problem in machine learning, with a plethora of well-tested and well-performing algorithms. There are also several good general textbooks [1-9] on the subject written to an average engineering, computer science, or statistics graduate student; most of them are also accessible for an average physics student with some background on computer science and statistics. Hence, instead of writing a generic introduction, we concentrate here on relating the subject to a practitioner experimental physicist. After a short introduction on the basic setup (Section 1) we delve into the practical issues of complexity regularization, model selection, and hyperparameter optimization (Section 2), since it is this step that makes high-complexity non-parametric fitting so different from low-dimensional parametric fitting. To emphasize that this issue is not restricted to classification, we illustrate the concept on a low-dimensional but non-parametric regression example (Section 2.1). Section 3 describes the common algorithmic-statistical formal framework that unifies the main families of multivariate classification algorithms. We explain here the large-margin principle that partly explains why these algorithms work. Section 4 is devoted to the description of the three main (families of) classification algorithms, neural networks, the support vector machine, and AdaBoost. We do not go into the algorithmic details; the goal is to give an overview on the form of the functions these methods learn and on the objective functions they optimize. Besides their technical description, we also make an attempt to put these algorithm into a socio-historical context. We then briefly describe some rather heterogeneous applications to illustrate the pattern recognition pipeline and to show how widespread the use of these methods is (Section 5). We conclude the chapter with three essentially open research problems that are either

  17. Introduction to multivariate discrimination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kegl, B.

    2013-01-01

    Multivariate discrimination or classification is one of the best-studied problem in machine learning, with a plethora of well-tested and well-performing algorithms. There are also several good general textbooks [1-9] on the subject written to an average engineering, computer science, or statistics graduate student; most of them are also accessible for an average physics student with some background on computer science and statistics. Hence, instead of writing a generic introduction, we concentrate here on relating the subject to a practitioner experimental physicist. After a short introduction on the basic setup (Section 1) we delve into the practical issues of complexity regularization, model selection, and hyper-parameter optimization (Section 2), since it is this step that makes high-complexity non-parametric fitting so different from low-dimensional parametric fitting. To emphasize that this issue is not restricted to classification, we illustrate the concept on a low-dimensional but non-parametric regression example (Section 2.1). Section 3 describes the common algorithmic-statistical formal framework that unifies the main families of multivariate classification algorithms. We explain here the large-margin principle that partly explains why these algorithms work. Section 4 is devoted to the description of the three main (families of) classification algorithms, neural networks, the support vector machine, and AdaBoost. We do not go into the algorithmic details; the goal is to give an overview on the form of the functions these methods learn and on the objective functions they optimize. Besides their technical description, we also make an attempt to put these algorithm into a socio-historical context. We then briefly describe some rather heterogeneous applications to illustrate the pattern recognition pipeline and to show how widespread the use of these methods is (Section 5). We conclude the chapter with three essentially open research problems that are either

  18. Incorporation of bacteriophages in polycaprolactone/collagen fibers for antibacterial hemostatic dual-function

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cheng, Weilu; Zhang, Zhongyang; Xu, Ruodan

    2018-01-01

    Effective and affordable, antibacterial and hemostatic materials are of great interests in clinical wound care practices. Herein, Enterobacteria phage T4 were incorporated in polycaprolactone/collagen I (PCL-ColI) nanofibers via electrospinning in order to eradicate Escherichia coli infection and...

  19. Prevalence of harassment and discrimination among residents in three training hospitals in Saudi Arabia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fnais, Naif; al-Nasser, Muhammad; Zamakhshary, Mohammad; Abuznadah, Wesam; Dhukair, Shahla Al; Saadeh, Mayssa; Al-Qarni, Ali; Bokhari, Bayan; Alshaeri, Taqreed; Aboalsamh, Nouf; Binahmed, AbdulAziz

    2013-01-01

    Multiple surveys of medical residents have shown a high incidence of harassment and discrimination in academic health centers. Harassment has a negative effects on residents' health and on their ability to function. No previous study has documented the prevalence of harassment and discrimination among residents in Saudi Arabia. We aimed in this study to assess the prevalence of harassment and discrimination among residents at a tertiary care academic hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Cross-sectional survey conducted at National Guard Hospitals in Riyadh, Jeddah and Al-Ahsa'a from 27 July to 20 August 2010. The survey included questions on the prevalence of harassment of different types, inlcuding verbal, academic, physical and sexual harassment, as well as discrimination on the basis of gender, region of origin or physical appearance. Of 380 residents, 213 (56%) returned a completed questionnaire (123 male, 57.8%). At least one of type of harassment and discrimination was reported by 83.6% of respondents. The most frequently reported forms were verbal harassment and gender discrimination (61.5% and 58.3%, respectively). Sexual harassment was commonly reported (19.3%) and was experienced significantly more often by female residents than by male residents (P=.0061). Harassment and discrimination of Saudi residents is common with more than three-quarters reporting having had such an experience. Identification of the risk factors is a necessary first step in clarifying this issue and could be used when planning strategies for prevention.

  20. Discriminant forest classification method and system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Barry Y.; Hanley, William G.; Lemmond, Tracy D.; Hiller, Lawrence J.; Knapp, David A.; Mugge, Marshall J.

    2012-11-06

    A hybrid machine learning methodology and system for classification that combines classical random forest (RF) methodology with discriminant analysis (DA) techniques to provide enhanced classification capability. A DA technique which uses feature measurements of an object to predict its class membership, such as linear discriminant analysis (LDA) or Andersen-Bahadur linear discriminant technique (AB), is used to split the data at each node in each of its classification trees to train and grow the trees and the forest. When training is finished, a set of n DA-based decision trees of a discriminant forest is produced for use in predicting the classification of new samples of unknown class.

  1. Structural and kinetic insights into binding and incorporation of L-nucleotide analogs by a Y-family DNA polymerase

    OpenAIRE

    Gaur, Vineet; Vyas, Rajan; Fowler, Jason D.; Efthimiopoulos, Georgia; Feng, Joy Y.; Suo, Zucai

    2014-01-01

    Considering that all natural nucleotides (D-dNTPs) and the building blocks (D-dNMPs) of DNA chains possess D-stereochemistry, DNA polymerases and reverse transcriptases (RTs) likely possess strongD-stereoselectivity by preferably binding and incorporating D-dNTPs over unnatural L-dNTPs during DNA synthesis. Surprisingly, a structural basis for the discrimination against L-dNTPs by DNA polymerases or RTs has not been established although L-deoxycytidine analogs (lamivudine and emtricitabine) a...

  2. Perceived discrimination in the Netherlands

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Iris Andriessen; Henk Fernee; Karin Wittebrood

    2014-01-01

    Only available in electronic version There is no systematic structure in the Netherlands for mapping out the discrimination experiences of different groups in different areas of society. As in many other countries, discrimination studies in the Netherlands mostly focus on the experiences

  3. Tunable fabrication of hierarchical hybrids via the incorporation of poly(dopamine) functional interlayer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Xu, Ting; Zhao, Xin; Zhang, Junxian; Dong, Jie; Zhang, Qinghua, E-mail: qhzhang@dhu.edu.cn

    2016-04-30

    Highlights: • PS/PDA with well-defined core/shell structures was prepared in aqueous solution. • Au NPs were coated on PS/PDA by in-situ reduction and self-assembly approach. • PS/PDA/Au had homogeneous and dense Au coatings with different shape. • Hierarchical spheres exhibited a well-defined core/shell structure maintaining the spherical morphology. - Abstract: Two kinds of ternary hybrids were prepared by anchoring different shapes and loadings of Au nanoparticles (NPs) on poly(dopamine) (PDA) functionalized polystyrene (PS) microspheres with two different strategies, i.e., in situ reduction and self-assembly approach. PDA coatings were firstly introduced to functionalize the hydrophobic PS surface with sufficient amino and hydroxyl groups, which enhanced the interaction between Au NPs and the polymer spheres. Thus, Au NPs could be easily immobilized onto the surface of the PDA/PS microspheres, and the hierarchical composite microspheres exhibited a well-defined core/shell structure without sacrificing the spherical PS morphology. PS/PDA/Au-R and PS/PDA/Au-A microspheres fabricated by in situ reduction and self-assembly approach showed different distinct Au nano-shell morphology with the corresponding optical, catalytic and electrochemical properties. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electronic microscopy verified these hierarchical structures with the ultrathin PDA film incorporating between the inner PS core and the outer Au NPs shell. X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the presence of PDA and Au layer on the surface of the composite particles. These green and facile methods with mild experimental conditions can extend to fabricate other polymer or inorganic substrates coated by various noble metals.

  4. Discrimination across the ideological divide : The role of value violations and abstract values in discrimination by liberals and conservatives

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wetherell, G.A.; Brandt, M.J.; Reyna, C.

    2013-01-01

    Despite ample research linking conservatism to discrimination and liberalism to tolerance, both groups may discriminate. In two studies, we investigated whether conservatives and liberals support discrimination against value violators, and whether liberals’ and conservatives’ values distinctly

  5. Bioelectric signal classification using a recurrent probabilistic neural network with time-series discriminant component analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayashi, Hideaki; Shima, Keisuke; Shibanoki, Taro; Kurita, Yuichi; Tsuji, Toshio

    2013-01-01

    This paper outlines a probabilistic neural network developed on the basis of time-series discriminant component analysis (TSDCA) that can be used to classify high-dimensional time-series patterns. TSDCA involves the compression of high-dimensional time series into a lower-dimensional space using a set of orthogonal transformations and the calculation of posterior probabilities based on a continuous-density hidden Markov model that incorporates a Gaussian mixture model expressed in the reduced-dimensional space. The analysis can be incorporated into a neural network so that parameters can be obtained appropriately as network coefficients according to backpropagation-through-time-based training algorithm. The network is considered to enable high-accuracy classification of high-dimensional time-series patterns and to reduce the computation time taken for network training. In the experiments conducted during the study, the validity of the proposed network was demonstrated for EEG signals.

  6. Impact of the "Like Minds, Like Mine" anti-stigma and discrimination campaign in New Zealand on anticipated and experienced discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thornicroft, Calum; Wyllie, Allan; Thornicroft, Graham; Mehta, Nisha

    2014-04-01

    The "Like Minds, Like Mine" anti-stigma and discrimination programme has been running in New Zealand since 1997. We aimed to investigate the nature and degree of anticipated and experienced discrimination reported by people with mental illness, and their views on whether the campaign was contributing to reductions in stigma and discrimination. Questionnaires were sent to randomly selected people who were representative of those who had recently used mental health services in New Zealand. The measure used was the modified Discrimination and Stigma Scale (DISC-12), adding questions on the effect of "Like Minds, Like Mine", and also assessing overall changes in discrimination in the previous 5 years. A total of 1135 participants completed the questionnaire. This included 225 Ma-ori, 196 Pacific, and 152 Asian persons. Over half of all participants reported improvement in discrimination over the previous 5 years, and 48% thought that the "Like Minds Like Mine" programme had assisted in reducing discrimination "moderately" or "a lot". Nevertheless, a clear majority (89%) reported experiencing at least "a little" unfair treatment in the previous 12 months due to their mental health problems. The primary source of both positive and negative discrimination was the family. Many (57%) participants had concealed or hidden their mental health problems from others, and 33% had stopped themselves from applying for work because they anticipated discrimination. Family, friendship, and social life were the most common areas of discrimination reported by the participants; however, many believed the overall level of discrimination had reduced over the previous 5 years. Overall, these results characterize the nature of stigma and discrimination anticipated and experienced by people with mental health problems and indicate modest but clear and positive recent progress in their reduction.

  7. 45 CFR 1151.16 - General prohibitions against discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false General prohibitions against discrimination. 1151... HANDICAP Discrimination Prohibited General § 1151.16 General prohibitions against discrimination. (a) No... the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which...

  8. Use of multi-frequency, multi-polarization, multi-angle airborne radars for class discrimination in a southern temperature forest

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, N. C.

    1984-01-01

    The utility of radar scatterometers for discrimination and characterization of natural vegetation was investigated. Backscatter measurements were acquired with airborne multi-frequency, multi-polarization, multi-angle radar scatterometers over a test site in a southern temperate forest. Separability between ground cover classes was studied using a two-class separability measure. Very good separability is achieved between most classes. Longer wavelength is useful in separating trees from non-tree classes, while shorter wavelength and cross polarization are helpful for discrimination among tree classes. Using the maximum likelihood classifier, 50% overall classification accuracy is achieved using a single, short-wavelength scatterometer channel. Addition of multiple incidence angles and another radar band improves classification accuracy by 20% and 50%, respectively, over the single channel accuracy. Incorporation of a third radar band seems redundant for vegetation classification. Vertical transmit polarization is critically important for all classes.

  9. Perceived Discrimination and Heavy Episodic Drinking Among African-American Youth: Differences by Age and Reason for Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madkour, Aubrey Spriggs; Jackson, Kristina; Wang, Heng; Miles, Thomas T; Mather, Frances; Shankar, Arti

    2015-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine whether associations between perceived discrimination and heavy episodic drinking (HED) vary by age and by discrimination type (e.g., racial, age, physical appearance) among African-American youth. National data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition to Adulthood Study were analyzed. Youth participated in up to four interviews (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011; n = 657) between ages 18 and 25 years. Respondents reported past-year engagement in HED (four or more drinks for females, five or more drinks for males) and frequency of discriminatory acts experienced (e.g., receiving poor service, being treated with less courtesy). Categorical latent growth curve models, including perceived discrimination types (racial, age, and physical appearance) as a time-varying predictors of HED, were run. Controls for gender, birth cohort, living arrangement in adolescence, familial wealth, parental alcohol use, and college attendance were explored. The average HED trajectory was curvilinear (increasing followed by flattening), whereas perceived discrimination remained flat with age. In models including controls, odds of HED were significantly higher than average around ages 20-21 years with greater frequency of perceived racial discrimination; associations were not significant at other ages. Discrimination attributed to age or physical appearance was not associated with HED at any age. Perceived racial discrimination may be a particularly salient risk factor for HED around the ages of transition to legal access to alcohol among African-American youth. Interventions to reduce discrimination or its impact could be targeted before this transition to ameliorate the negative outcomes associated with HED. Copyright © 2015 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. The development of a self-administered dementia checklist: the examination of concurrent validity and discriminant validity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyamae, Fumiko; Ura, Chiaki; Sakuma, Naoko; Niikawa, Hirotoshi; Inagaki, Hiroki; Ijuin, Mutsuo; Okamura, Tsuyoshi; Sugiyama, Mika; Awata, Shuichi

    2016-01-01

    The present study aims to develop a self-administered dementia checklist to enable community-residing older adults to realize their declining functions and start using necessary services. A previous study confirmed the factorial validity and internal reliability of the checklist. The present study examined its concurrent validity and discriminant validity. The authors conducted a 3-step study (a self-administered survey including the checklist, interviews by nurses, and interviews by doctors and psychologists) of 7,682 community-residing individuals who were over 65 years of age. The authors calculated Spearman's correlation coefficients between the scores of the checklist and the results of a psychological test to examine the concurrent validity. They also compared the average total scores of the checklist between groups with different Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores to examine discriminant validity and conducted a receiver operating characteristic analysis to examine the discriminative power for dementia. The authors analyzed the data of 131 respondents who completed all 3 steps. The checklist scores were significantly correlated with the respondents' Mini-Mental State Examination and Frontal Assessment Battery scores. The checklist also significantly discriminated the patients with dementia (CDR = 1+) from those without dementia (CDR = 0 or 0.5). The optimal cut-off point for the two groups was 17/18 (sensitivity, 72.0%; specificity, 69.2%; positive predictive value, 69.2%; negative predictive value, 72.0%). This study confirmed the concurrent validity and discriminant validity of the self-administered dementia checklist. However, due to its insufficient discriminative power as a screening tool for older people with declining cognitive functions, the checklist is only recommended as an educational and public awareness tool.

  11. Prevention at school level. Chile: "Education for prevention and non-discrimination".

    Science.gov (United States)

    1993-01-01

    The Ministry of Education in Chile has adopted a policy that guarantees the right of children with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) to be educated. The document, "Educational policy and sexuality," recommends incorporating sex education and AIDS prevention into the school curriculum. In San Bernardo, where one child was not accepted at school, a project, "Education for prevention and non-discrimination," was announced by municipal authorities. Students in public and private schools in the country have been trained as monitors who, in the school environment, educate other children about AIDS. In Santiago, seminars that cover fear of AIDS have begun for teachers, many of whom are afraid. Working groups are being considered for development and communication of prevention strategies in schools.

  12. Discrimination against Muslim American Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aroian, Karen J.

    2012-01-01

    Although there is ample evidence of discrimination toward Muslim Americans in general, there is limited information specific to Muslim American adolescents. The few existing studies specific to this age group suggest that Muslim American adolescents encounter much discrimination from teachers, school administrators, and classmates. This…

  13. Characterization of Microbiota in Children with Chronic Functional Constipation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Meij, Tim G J; de Groot, Evelien F J; Eck, Anat; Budding, Andries E; Kneepkens, C M Frank; Benninga, Marc A; van Bodegraven, Adriaan A; Savelkoul, Paul H M

    2016-01-01

    Disruption of the intestinal microbiota is considered an etiological factor in pediatric functional constipation. Scientifically based selection of potential beneficial probiotic strains in functional constipation therapy is not feasible due to insufficient knowledge of microbiota composition in affected subjects. The aim of this study was to describe microbial composition and diversity in children with functional constipation, compared to healthy controls. Fecal samples from 76 children diagnosed with functional constipation according to the Rome III criteria (median age 8.0 years; range 4.2-17.8) were analyzed by IS-pro, a PCR-based microbiota profiling method. Outcome was compared with intestinal microbiota profiles of 61 healthy children (median 8.6 years; range 4.1-17.9). Microbiota dissimilarity was depicted by principal coordinate analysis (PCoA), diversity was calculated by Shannon diversity index. To determine the most discriminative species, cross validated logistic ridge regression was performed. Applying total microbiota profiles (all phyla together) or per phylum analysis, no disease-specific separation was observed by PCoA and by calculation of diversity indices. By ridge regression, however, functional constipation and controls could be discriminated with 82% accuracy. Most discriminative species were Bacteroides fragilis, Bacteroides ovatus, Bifidobacterium longum, Parabacteroides species (increased in functional constipation) and Alistipes finegoldii (decreased in functional constipation). None of the commonly used unsupervised statistical methods allowed for microbiota-based discrimination of children with functional constipation and controls. By ridge regression, however, both groups could be discriminated with 82% accuracy. Optimization of microbiota-based interventions in constipated children warrants further characterization of microbial signatures linked to clinical subgroups of functional constipation.

  14. Selective increase of auditory cortico-striatal coherence during auditory-cued Go/NoGo discrimination learning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas L. Schulz

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Goal directed behavior and associated learning processes are tightly linked to neuronal activity in the ventral striatum. Mechanisms that integrate task relevant sensory information into striatal processing during decision making and learning are implicitly assumed in current reinforcementmodels, yet they are still weakly understood. To identify the functional activation of cortico-striatal subpopulations of connections during auditory discrimination learning, we trained Mongolian gerbils in a two-way active avoidance task in a shuttlebox to discriminate between falling and rising frequency modulated tones with identical spectral properties. We assessed functional coupling by analyzing the field-field coherence between the auditory cortex and the ventral striatum of animals performing the task. During the course of training, we observed a selective increase of functionalcoupling during Go-stimulus presentations. These results suggest that the auditory cortex functionally interacts with the ventral striatum during auditory learning and that the strengthening of these functional connections is selectively goal-directed.

  15. Sexuality-related work discrimination and its association with the health of sexual minority emerging and young adult men in the Detroit Metro Area.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauermeister, José A; Meanley, Steven; Hickok, Andrew; Pingel, Emily; Vanhemert, William; Loveluck, Jimena

    2014-03-01

    Discrimination has been linked to negative health outcomes among minority populations. The increasing evidence regarding health disparities among sexual minorities has underscored the importance of addressing sexuality discrimination as a public health issue. We conducted a web-based survey between May and September of 2012 in order to obtain a diverse sample of young men who have sex with men (ages 18-29; N = 397; 83% gay; 49% Black, 27% White, 15% Latino) living in the Detroit Metro Area (Michigan, USA). Using multivariate regression models, we examined the association between overall health (self-rated health, days in prior month when their physical or mental health was not good, limited functionality) and experiences of sexuality-based work discrimination. Fifteen percent reported at least one experience of sexuality-based work discrimination in the prior year. Recent workplace discrimination was associated with poorer self-rated health, a greater number of days when health was not good, and more functional limitation. We discuss the importance of addressing sexuality-related discrimination as a public health problem and propose multilevel intervention strategies to address these discriminatory practices.

  16. Credit scoring analysis using kernel discriminant

    Science.gov (United States)

    Widiharih, T.; Mukid, M. A.; Mustafid

    2018-05-01

    Credit scoring model is an important tool for reducing the risk of wrong decisions when granting credit facilities to applicants. This paper investigate the performance of kernel discriminant model in assessing customer credit risk. Kernel discriminant analysis is a non- parametric method which means that it does not require any assumptions about the probability distribution of the input. The main ingredient is a kernel that allows an efficient computation of Fisher discriminant. We use several kernel such as normal, epanechnikov, biweight, and triweight. The models accuracy was compared each other using data from a financial institution in Indonesia. The results show that kernel discriminant can be an alternative method that can be used to determine who is eligible for a credit loan. In the data we use, it shows that a normal kernel is relevant to be selected for credit scoring using kernel discriminant model. Sensitivity and specificity reach to 0.5556 and 0.5488 respectively.

  17. Unravelling fears of genetic discrimination: an exploratory study of Dutch HCM families in an era of genetic non-discrimination acts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geelen, Els; Horstman, Klasien; Marcelis, Carlo L M; Doevendans, Pieter A; Van Hoyweghen, Ine

    2012-10-01

    Since the 1990s, many countries in Europe and the United States have enacted genetic non-discrimination legislation to prevent people from deferring genetic tests for fear that insurers or employers would discriminate against them based on that information. Although evidence for genetic discrimination exists, little is known about the origins and backgrounds of fears of discrimination and how it affects decisions for uptake of genetic testing. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of these fears and its possible impact on the uptake of testing by studying the case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). In a qualitative study, we followed six Dutch extended families involved in genetic testing for HCM for three-and-a-half years. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 members of these families. Based on the narratives of the families, we suggest that fears of discrimination have to be situated in the broader social and life-course context of family and kin. We describe the processes in which families developed meaningful interpretations of genetic discrimination and how these interpretations affected family members' decisions to undergo genetic testing. Our findings show that fears of genetic discrimination do not so much stem from the opportunity of genetic testing but much more from earlier experiences of discrimination of diseased family members. These results help identify the possible limitations of genetic non-discrimination regulations and provide direction to clinicians supporting their clients as they confront issues of genetic testing and genetic discrimination.

  18. Weight-based discrimination: an ubiquitary phenomenon?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sikorski, C; Spahlholz, J; Hartlev, M; Riedel-Heller, S G

    2016-02-01

    Despite strong indications of a high prevalence of weight-related stigmatization in individuals with obesity, limited attention has been given to the role of weight discrimination in examining the stigma obesity. Studies, up to date, rely on a limited basis of data sets and additional studies are needed to confirm the findings of previous studies. In particular, data for Europe are lacking, and are needed in light of a recent ruling of the European Court of Justice that addressed weight-based discrimination. The data were derived from a large representative telephone survey in Germany (n=3003). The dependent variable, weight-based discrimination, was assessed with a one-item question. The lifetime prevalence of weight discrimination across different sociodemographic variables was determined. Logistic regression models were used to assess the association of independent and dependent variables. A sub-group analysis was conducted analyzing all participants with a body mass index ⩾25 kg m(-)(2). The overall prevalence of weight-based discrimination was 7.3%. Large differences, however, were observed regarding weight status. In normal weight and overweight participants the prevalence was 5.6%, but this number doubled in participants with obesity class I (10.2%), and quadrupled in participants with obesity class II (18.7%) and underweight (19.7%). In participants with obesity class III, every third participant reported accounts of weight-based discrimination (38%). In regression models, after adjustment, the associations of weight status and female gender (odds ratio: 2.59, PDiscrimination seems to be an ubiquitary phenomenon at least for some groups that are at special risk, such as heavier individuals and women. Our findings therefore emphasize the need for research and intervention on weight discrimination among adults with obesity, including anti-discrimination legislation.

  19. Discrimination and psychological distress among recently released male prisoners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turney, Kristin; Lee, Hedwig; Comfort, Megan

    2013-11-01

    Though theoretical perspectives suggest experiences of stigma and discrimination after release may be one pathway through which incarceration leads to poor mental health, little research considers the relationship between discrimination and mental health among former inmates. In this article, data from a sample of men recently released from prison to Oakland or San Francisco, California (N = 172), are used to consider how criminal record discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination are independently and cumulatively associated with psychological distress. Results indicate that (a) the frequency of criminal record discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination are similar; (b) both forms of discrimination are independently, negatively associated with psychological distress; and (c) the level of racial/ethnic discrimination does not alter the association between criminal record discrimination and psychological distress. The results highlight that criminal record discrimination is an important social stressor with negative implications for the mental health of previously incarcerated individuals.

  20. Beneficial effects of amino acid-functionalized graphene nanosheets incorporated in the photoanode material of dye-sensitized solar cells: A practical and theoretical study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Taki, Mahmood; Rezaei, Behzad; Fani, Najmeh; Borandeh, Sedigheh; Abdolmaleki, Amir; Ensafi, Ali A.

    2017-01-01

    Highlights: • Electrochemical properties of GO was improved with incorporated amino acids. • Functionalized amino acids could act as a reducing agent for GO. • Aromatic amino acids-GO had improved photovoltaic properties over aliphatic ones. • Aromatic ring of tyrosine was aligned in parallel to the GO sheet. • A bang gap for GO was emerged with functionalizing with amino acids. - Abstract: In this research, covalently functionalized graphene oxide (GO) with some biocompatible amino acids were incorporated to the TiO_2 film and employed as the photoanodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Electrochemical analysis of the amino acids-functionalized graphene oxide (AFGs) confirmed that the attached amino acids could be acted as a reducing agent of the GO. The photovoltaic performance of the assembled DSSCs under illumination of simulated AM 1.5 sunlight (100 mW cm"−"2) showed an enhancement of about 4.1 and 1.8 fold for the solar cell assembled with the tyrosine-functionalized GO in relation to the control solar cells constructed with GO-TiO_2 composite and blank TiO_2 film, respectively. These results were in accordance with electron life time and transport time resulted from the open circuit voltage decay (OCVD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) analysis. The density functional theory (DFT) calculations exhibited a proper spacial arrangement for the tyrosine-GO structure that could improve electron transfer between the adjucent GO sheets. Density of electronic states (DOS) exhibited a gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy levels for the simulated AFG structures. This effect could facilitate the light adsorption process in near-IR region.