AMNT 2014. Key Topic: Reactor operation, safety - report. Pt. 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schaffrath, Andreas

2014-01-01

Summary report on one session of the Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology held in Frankfurt, 6 to 8 May 2014: - Safety of Nuclear Installations - Methods, Analysis, Results: Backfittings for the Improvement of Safety and Efficiency. The other Sessions of the Key Topics 'Reactor Operation, Safety', 'Competence, Innovation, Regulation' and 'Fuel, Decommissioning and Disposal' will be covered in further issues of atw.

2011 annual meeting on nuclear technology. Pt. 4. Topical sessions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schoenfelder, Christian; Dams, Wolfgang

2011-01-01

Summary report on the Topical Session of the Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology held in Berlin, 17 to 19 May 2011: - Nuclear Competence in Germany and Europe. The Topical Session: - Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors -- will be covered in a report in a further issue of atw. The reports on the Topical Sessions: - CFD-Simulations for Safety Relevant Tasks; and - Final Disposal: From Scientific Basis to Application; - Characteristics of a High Reliability Organization (HRO) Considering Experience Gained from Events at Nuclear Power Stations -- have been covered in atw 7, 8/9, and 10 (2011). (orig.)

Key Topics in Sports Medicine

OpenAIRE

2006-01-01

Key Topics in Sports Medicine is a single quick reference source for sports and exercise medicine. It presents the essential information from across relevant topic areas, and includes both the core and emerging issues in this rapidly developing field. It covers: 1) Sports injuries, rehabilitation and injury prevention, 2) Exercise physiology, fitness testing and training, 3) Drugs in sport, 4) Exercise and health promotion, 5) Sport and exercise for special and clinical populations, 6) The ps...

AMNT 2014. Key Topic: Reactor operation, safety - report. Pt. 1

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schaffrath, Andreas [Gesellschaft fuer Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit mbH (GRS), Garching (Germany). Forschungszentrum

2014-10-15

Summary report on one session of the Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology held in Frankfurt, 6 to 8 May 2014: - Safety of Nuclear Installations - Methods, Analysis, Results: Backfittings for the Improvement of Safety and Efficiency. The other Sessions of the Key Topics 'Reactor Operation, Safety', 'Competence, Innovation, Regulation' and 'Fuel, Decommissioning and Disposal' will be covered in further issues of atw.

Analyses of Research Topics in the Field of Informetrics Based on the Method of Topic Modeling

OpenAIRE

Sung-Chien Lin

2014-01-01

In this study, we used the approach of topic modeling to uncover the possible structure of research topics in the field of Informetrics, to explore the distribution of the topics over years, and to compare the core journals. In order to infer the structure of the topics in the field, the data of the papers published in the Journal of Informetricsand Scientometrics during 2007 to 2013 are retrieved from the database of the Web of Science as input of the approach of topic modeling. The results ...

Using NASA Space Imaging Technology to Teach Earth and Sun Topics

Science.gov (United States)

Verner, E.; Bruhweiler, F. C.; Long, T.

2011-12-01

We teach an experimental college-level course, directed toward elementary education majors, emphasizing "hands-on" activities that can be easily applied to the elementary classroom. This course, Physics 240: "The Sun-Earth Connection" includes various ways to study selected topics in physics, earth science, and basic astronomy. Our lesson plans and EPO materials make extensive use of NASA imagery and cover topics about magnetism, the solar photospheric, chromospheric, coronal spectra, as well as earth science and climate. In addition we are developing and will cover topics on ecosystem structure, biomass and water on Earth. We strive to free the non-science undergraduate from the "fear of science" and replace it with the excitement of science such that these future teachers will carry this excitement to their future students. Hands-on experiments, computer simulations, analysis of real NASA data, and vigorous seminar discussions are blended in an inquiry-driven curriculum to instill confident understanding of basic physical science and modern, effective methods for teaching it. The course also demonstrates ways how scientific thinking and hands-on activities could be implemented in the classroom. We have designed this course to provide the non-science student a confident basic understanding of physical science and modern, effective methods for teaching it. Most of topics were selected using National Science Standards and National Mathematics Standards that are addressed in grades K-8. The course focuses on helping education majors: 1) Build knowledge of scientific concepts and processes; 2) Understand the measurable attributes of objects and the units and methods of measurements; 3) Conduct data analysis (collecting, organizing, presenting scientific data, and to predict the result); 4) Use hands-on approaches to teach science; 5) Be familiar with Internet science teaching resources. Here we share our experiences and challenges we face while teaching this course.

Analyses of Research Topics in the Field of Informetrics Based on the Method of Topic Modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sung-Chien Lin

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this study, we used the approach of topic modeling to uncover the possible structure of research topics in the field of Informetrics, to explore the distribution of the topics over years, and to compare the core journals. In order to infer the structure of the topics in the field, the data of the papers published in the Journal of Informetricsand Scientometrics during 2007 to 2013 are retrieved from the database of the Web of Science as input of the approach of topic modeling. The results of this study show that when the number of topics was set to 10, the topic model has the smallest perplexity. Although data scopes and analysis methodsare different to previous studies, the generating topics of this study are consistent with those results produced by analyses of experts. Empirical case studies and measurements of bibliometric indicators were concerned important in every year during the whole analytic period, and the field was increasing stability. Both the two core journals broadly paid more attention to all of the topics in the field of Informetrics. The Journal of Informetricsput particular emphasis on construction and applications ofbibliometric indicators and Scientometrics focused on the evaluation and the factors of productivity of countries, institutions, domains, and journals.

Section 608 Technician Certification Test Topics

Science.gov (United States)

Identifies some of the topics covered on Section 608 Technician Certification tests such as ozone depletion, the Clean Air Act and Montreal Protocol, Substitute Refrigerants and oils, Refrigeration and Recovery Techniques.

77 FR 7095 - Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patents-Definition of Technological Invention

Science.gov (United States)

2012-02-10

... 0651-AC75 Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patents-- Definition of Technological... definition of technological invention that the Board will use in conducting transitional covered business... definition for covered business method patent in proposed Sec. 42.301(a). Additionally, the Office in a...

Treatment Duration of Topics in Senior Secondary School Core ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

kofimereku

years to better equip the students for university education (Daily Graphic of. September 15th 1998). .... five items similar to those in the SS Mathematics Book 3, and covered all the sub-topics of the topic ..... Soviet Union. United States. 181. 188.

Discussion on calculation method of overburden cover for radon reduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liang Jianlong; Zhou Xinghuo; Zhou Ju; Liu Huijuan

2010-01-01

The article collects a large number of experimental results from domestic researchers with regard to soil overburden experimental methods. Based on analyzing experimental results, some questions in determining requirements for overburden cover thickness, data processing method and negative intercept have been dis- cussed. (authors)

Method of collecting helium cover gas for heavy water moderated reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyamoto, Keiji; Ueda, Hiroshi.

1981-01-01

Purpose: To reduce the systematic facility cost in a heavy water moderated reactor by contriving the simplification of a helium cover gas collecting intake system. Method: A detachable low pressure metal tank and a neoprene balloon are prepared for a vacuum pump in a permanent vacuum drying facility. When all of the helium cover gas is collected from a heavy water moderated reactor, a large capacity of neoprene balloon capable of temporarily storing it under low pressure is connected to the exhaust of the vacuum pump. On the other hand, while the reactor is operating, a suitable amount of the low pressure tank or neoprene balloon is connected to the exhaust side of the pump, thereby regulating the pressure of the helium cover gas. When refeeding the cover gas, the balloon, with a large capacity for collecting and storing the cover gas is connected to the intake side of the pump. Thus, the pressure regulation, collection of all of the cover gas and refeeding of the cover gas can be conducted without using a high discharge pump and high pressure tank. (Kamimura, M.)

Nanocrystal: a novel approach to overcome skin barriers for improved topical drug delivery.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Viral; Sharma, Om Prakash; Mehta, Tejal

2018-04-01

Skin is an important route of drug delivery for the treatment of various dermatological conditions. The advent of nanotechnology is paving the roadmaps for topical drug delivery by providing sustained release as well as maintaining a localized effect, outweighing the toxicity concern. Area covered: This review highlighted the morphology of skin, its barrier nature as well as drug penetration pathways after topical application of formulations. The existing methods to improve topical drug delivery, by infringing or permeating the skin barriers, are discussed. This context concretes the foundation to accentuate the need for the development of nanocrystal-based topical formulation. The mechanism of drug release, immediate as well as sustained release, after topical administration of drug nanocrystals is also elaborated. The special emphasis is given on the breakthrough achieved, in topical drug delivery using drug nanocrystals, so far in the plethora of literature, patents, and products, under clinical trial as well as in the market. Expert opinion: The current research on nanocrystals for topical drug delivery is highlighting the breakthroughs achieved so far. The output of these research envisages that topical nanocrystals based formulations can be a novel strategy for the drugs which are facing solubility, bioavailability and toxicity concerns.

Topic models: A novel method for modeling couple and family text data

Science.gov (United States)

Atkins, David C.; Rubin, Tim N.; Steyvers, Mark; Doeden, Michelle A.; Baucom, Brian R.; Christensen, Andrew

2012-01-01

Couple and family researchers often collect open-ended linguistic data – either through free response questionnaire items or transcripts of interviews or therapy sessions. Because participant's responses are not forced into a set number of categories, text-based data can be very rich and revealing of psychological processes. At the same time it is highly unstructured and challenging to analyze. Within family psychology analyzing text data typically means applying a coding system, which can quantify text data but also has several limitations, including the time needed for coding, difficulties with inter-rater reliability, and defining a priori what should be coded. The current article presents an alternative method for analyzing text data called topic models (Steyvers & Griffiths, 2006), which has not yet been applied within couple and family psychology. Topic models have similarities with factor analysis and cluster analysis in that topic models identify underlying clusters of words with semantic similarities (i.e., the “topics”). In the present article, a non-technical introduction to topic models is provided, highlighting how these models can be used for text exploration and indexing (e.g., quickly locating text passages that share semantic meaning) and how output from topic models can be used to predict behavioral codes or other types of outcomes. Throughout the article a collection of transcripts from a large couple therapy trial (Christensen et al., 2004) is used as example data to highlight potential applications. Practical resources for learning more about topic models and how to apply them are discussed. PMID:22888778

Covering of the electric power service

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unidad de Planeacion Minero Energetica, UPME

2000-01-01

In this article it is sought to deepen more in the topic of the covering of the electric power service, especially in the related with the mechanisms that could facilitate their amplification. In the new market outline, in the one that the participation of the agents is encouraged in all the activities of the chain of services in which the state is not direct lender of the same one, it is confused the form like a covering will be achieved that is of agreement with the goals that intend in the national plan of development and in the sub sectorial plans. Although the rules of the market one comes consolidating, the process of linking of the private capital, especially in the distribution activity, it evidences the importance of to settle down and to define responsibilities and explicit mechanisms in the topic of expansion of the covering. A first interpretation of the ruled indicates the obligation of the state of extending the covering to 100% and of assuming the projects that don't undertake the matters. This would be the reading from the traditional mentality. However, the regulation of you public services of electricity don't demand a total covering, but rather it covers to the users that have the capacity to assume, with their own resources, the efficient costs of benefit. The service will also be lent to residential users that don't have payment capacity, when there are contribution resources or fiscal resources for subsidiary

PROTECTIVELY COVERED ARTICLE AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE

Science.gov (United States)

Plott, R.F.

1958-10-28

A method of casting a protective jacket about a ura nium fuel element that will bond completely to the uranium without the use of stringers or supports that would ordinarily produce gaps in the cast metal coating and bond is presented. Preformed endcaps of alumlnum alloyed with 13% silicon are placed on the ends of the uranium fuel element. These caps will support the fuel element when placed in a mold. The mold is kept at a ing alloy but below that of uranium so the cast metal jacket will fuse with the endcaps forming a complete covering and bond to the fuel element, which would otherwise oxidize at the gaps or discontinuities lefi in the coating by previous casting methods.

USING OF THE COVER AMOUNTS METHOD FOR OPTIMIZATION OF INCOME

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. V. Volkov

2007-01-01

Full Text Available The method of cover amounts (marginal income gives possibility to determine profitableness of each kind of the production and their real contribution into the result of work of enterprise.

Incorporating Topic Assignment Constraint and Topic Correlation Limitation into Clinical Goal Discovering for Clinical Pathway Mining

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiao Xu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Clinical pathways are widely used around the world for providing quality medical treatment and controlling healthcare cost. However, the expert-designed clinical pathways can hardly deal with the variances among hospitals and patients. It calls for more dynamic and adaptive process, which is derived from various clinical data. Topic-based clinical pathway mining is an effective approach to discover a concise process model. Through this approach, the latent topics found by latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA represent the clinical goals. And process mining methods are used to extract the temporal relations between these topics. However, the topic quality is usually not desirable due to the low performance of the LDA in clinical data. In this paper, we incorporate topic assignment constraint and topic correlation limitation into the LDA to enhance the ability of discovering high-quality topics. Two real-world datasets are used to evaluate the proposed method. The results show that the topics discovered by our method are with higher coherence, informativeness, and coverage than the original LDA. These quality topics are suitable to represent the clinical goals. Also, we illustrate that our method is effective in generating a comprehensive topic-based clinical pathway model.

2nd Topical Workshop on Laser Technology and Optics Design

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

Lasers have a variety of applications in particle accelerator operation and will play a key role in the development of future particle accelerators by improving the generation of high brightness electron and exotic ion beams and through increasing the acceleration gradient. Lasers will also make an increasingly important contribution to the characterization of many complex particle beams by means of laser-based beam diagnostics methods. The second LANET topical workshop will address the key aspects of laser technology and optics design relevant to laser application to accelerators. The workshop will cover general optics design, provide an overview of different laser sources and discuss methods to characterize beams in details. Participants will be able to choose from a range of topical areas that go deeper in more specific aspects including tuneable lasers, design of transfer lines, noise sources and their elimination and non-linear optics effects. The format of the workshop will be mainly training-based wit...

Problem-Based Learning Method: Secondary Education 10th Grade Chemistry Course Mixtures Topic

Science.gov (United States)

Üce, Musa; Ates, Ismail

2016-01-01

In this research; aim was determining student achievement by comparing problem-based learning method with teacher-centered traditional method of teaching 10th grade chemistry lesson mixtures topic. Pretest-posttest control group research design is implemented. Research sample includes; two classes of (total of 48 students) an Anatolian High School…

Inhibition of Corneal Neovascularization by Topical and Subconjunctival Tigecycline

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sertan Goktas

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. To investigate the effects of topical and subconjunctival tigecycline on the prevention of corneal neovascularization. Materials and Methods. Following chemical burn, thirty-two rats were treated daily with topical instillation of 1 mg/mL tigecycline (group 1 or subconjunctival instillation of 1 mg/mL tigecycline (group 3 for 7 days. Control rats received topical (group 2 or subconjunctival (group 4 0.9% saline. Digital photographs of the cornea were taken on the eighth day after treatment and analyzed to determine the percentage area of the cornea covered by neovascularization. Corneal sections were analyzed histopathologically. Results. The median percentages of corneal neovascularization in groups 1 and 3 were 48% (95% confidence interval (CI, 44.2–55.8% and 33.5% (95% CI, 26.6–39.2%, respectively. The median percentages of corneal neovascularization of groups 1 and 3 were significantly lower than that of the control group (P=0.03 and P<0.001, resp.. Histologic examination of samples from groups 1 and 3 showed lower vascularity than that of control groups. Conclusion. Topical and subconjunctival administration of tigecycline seems to be showing promising therapeutic effects on the prevention of corneal neovascularization. Furthermore, subconjunctival administration of tigecycline is more potent than topical administration in the inhibition of corneal neovascularization.

Comparison of Data Fusion Methods Using Crowdsourced Data in Creating a Hybrid Forest Cover Map

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Myroslava Lesiv

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Data fusion represents a powerful way of integrating individual sources of information to produce a better output than could be achieved by any of the individual sources on their own. This paper focuses on the data fusion of different land cover products derived from remote sensing. In the past, many different methods have been applied, without regard to their relative merit. In this study, we compared some of the most commonly-used methods to develop a hybrid forest cover map by combining available land cover/forest products and crowdsourced data on forest cover obtained through the Geo-Wiki project. The methods include: nearest neighbour, naive Bayes, logistic regression and geographically-weighted logistic regression (GWR, as well as classification and regression trees (CART. We ran the comparison experiments using two data types: presence/absence of forest in a grid cell; percentage of forest cover in a grid cell. In general, there was little difference between the methods. However, GWR was found to perform better than the other tested methods in areas with high disagreement between the inputs.

SETI: A good introductory physics topic

Science.gov (United States)

Hobson, Art

1997-04-01

If America is to achieve the science literacy that is essential to industrialized democracy, all students must study such topics as scientific methodology, pseudoscience, ozone depletion, and global warming. My large-enrollment liberal-arts physics course covers the great principles of physics along with several such philosophical and societal topics. It is easy to include the interdisciplinary context of physics in courses for non-scientists, because these courses are flexible, conceptual, and taught to students whose interests span a broad range. Students find these topics relevant and fascinating, leading to large enrollments by non-scientists even in courses labeled ''physics.'' I will discuss my approach to teaching the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), a topic with lots of good physics and with connections to scientific methodology and pseudoscience. A textbook for this kind of course has been published, Physics: Concepts and Connections (Prentice-Hall, 1995).

A Simulated Annealing method to solve a generalized maximal covering location problem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Saeed Jabalameli

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The maximal covering location problem (MCLP seeks to locate a predefined number of facilities in order to maximize the number of covered demand points. In a classical sense, MCLP has three main implicit assumptions: all or nothing coverage, individual coverage, and fixed coverage radius. By relaxing these assumptions, three classes of modelling formulations are extended: the gradual cover models, the cooperative cover models, and the variable radius models. In this paper, we develop a special form of MCLP which combines the characteristics of gradual cover models, cooperative cover models, and variable radius models. The proposed problem has many applications such as locating cell phone towers. The model is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP. In addition, a simulated annealing algorithm is used to solve the resulted problem and the performance of the proposed method is evaluated with a set of randomly generated problems.

Dressings and topical agents for surgical wounds healing by secondary intention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vermeulen, H.; Ubbink, D.; Goossens, A.; de Vos, R.; Legemate, D.

2004-01-01

BACKGROUND: Many different wound dressings and topical applications are used to cover surgical wounds healing by secondary intention. It is not known whether these dressings heal wounds at different rates. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness of dressings and topical agents on surgical wounds

Conference on Stochastic Analysis and Related Topics

CERN Document Server

Peterson, Jonathon

2017-01-01

The articles in this collection are a sampling of some of the research presented during the conference “Stochastic Analysis and Related Topics”, held in May of 2015 at Purdue University in honor of the 60th birthday of Rodrigo Bañuelos. A wide variety of topics in probability theory is covered in these proceedings, including heat kernel estimates, Malliavin calculus, rough paths differential equations, Lévy processes, Brownian motion on manifolds, and spin glasses, among other topics.

Nitrate Leaching From Grain Maize After Different Tillage Methods and Long/Short Term Cover Cropping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Elly Møller

trial initiated in 1968 on a coarse sandy soil. The previous trial included spring sown crops undersown (with or without) perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) as cover crop, two N-rates (90 and 120 kg N ha-1) and different tillage methods (shallow tillage and ploughing autumn or spring). With maize......) previous history of long-term cover cropping, ii) soil tillage methods, iii) N rates and iv) present short-term use of cover cropping in maize. Preliminary results from 2009 – 2011 suggest that leaching after a history of cover cropping tended to be higher than after no history of cover cropping......, but the effect was insignificant. The effect of tillage and previous N rates were also insignificant but the present use of cover crops had a small but significant decreasing effect on leaching compared to no cover cropping. The cover crop was well established in both years but grew less vigorously during autumn...

Selected topics from classical bacterial genetics.

Science.gov (United States)

Raleigh, Elisabeth A; Elbing, Karen; Brent, Roger

2002-08-01

Current cloning technology exploits many facts learned from classical bacterial genetics. This unit covers those that are critical to understanding the techniques described in this book. Topics include antibiotics, the LAC operon, the F factor, nonsense suppressors, genetic markers, genotype and phenotype, DNA restriction, modification and methylation and recombination.

Method of a covering space in quantum field theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Serebryanyj, E.M.

1982-01-01

To construct the Green function of the Laplace operator in the domain M bounded by conducting surfaces the generalized method of images is used. It is based on replacement of the domain M by its discrete bundle and that is why the term ''method of covering space'' is used. Continuing one of the coordinates to imaginary values the euclidean Green function is transformed into the causal one. This allows one to compute vacuum stress-energy tensor of the scalar massless field if the vacuum is stable [ru

Hot Topics/New Initiatives | Drinking Water in New England ...

Science.gov (United States)

2017-07-06

Information on Drinking Water in New England. Major Topics covered include: Conservation, Private Wells, Preventing Contamination, Drinking Water Sources, Consumer Confidence Reports, and Drinking Water Awards.

Applied atomic and collision physics special topics

CERN Document Server

Massey, H S W; Bederson, Benjamin

1982-01-01

Applied Atomic Collision Physics, Volume 5: Special Topics deals with topics on applications of atomic collisions that were not covered in the first four volumes of the treatise. The book opens with a chapter on ultrasensitive chemical detectors. This is followed by separate chapters on lighting, magnetohydrodynamic electrical power generation, gas breakdown and high voltage insulating gases, thermionic energy converters, and charged particle detectors. Subsequent chapters deal with the operation of multiwire drift and proportional chambers and streamer chambers and their use in high energy p

GeneTopics - interpretation of gene sets via literature-driven topic models

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Annotation of a set of genes is often accomplished through comparison to a library of labelled gene sets such as biological processes or canonical pathways. However, this approach might fail if the employed libraries are not up to date with the latest research, don't capture relevant biological themes or are curated at a different level of granularity than is required to appropriately analyze the input gene set. At the same time, the vast biomedical literature offers an unstructured repository of the latest research findings that can be tapped to provide thematic sub-groupings for any input gene set. Methods Our proposed method relies on a gene-specific text corpus and extracts commonalities between documents in an unsupervised manner using a topic model approach. We automatically determine the number of topics summarizing the corpus and calculate a gene relevancy score for each topic allowing us to eliminate non-specific topics. As a result we obtain a set of literature topics in which each topic is associated with a subset of the input genes providing directly interpretable keywords and corresponding documents for literature research. Results We validate our method based on labelled gene sets from the KEGG metabolic pathway collection and the genetic association database (GAD) and show that the approach is able to detect topics consistent with the labelled annotation. Furthermore, we discuss the results on three different types of experimentally derived gene sets, (1) differentially expressed genes from a cardiac hypertrophy experiment in mice, (2) altered transcript abundance in human pancreatic beta cells, and (3) genes implicated by GWA studies to be associated with metabolite levels in a healthy population. In all three cases, we are able to replicate findings from the original papers in a quick and semi-automated manner. Conclusions Our approach provides a novel way of automatically generating meaningful annotations for gene sets that are directly

What Patients Can Tell Us: Topic Analysis for Social Media on Breast Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Tapi Nzali, Mike Donald; Bringay, Sandra; Lavergne, Christian; Mollevi, Caroline; Opitz, Thomas

2017-07-31

Social media dedicated to health are increasingly used by patients and health professionals. They are rich textual resources with content generated through free exchange between patients. We are proposing a method to tackle the problem of retrieving clinically relevant information from such social media in order to analyze the quality of life of patients with breast cancer. Our aim was to detect the different topics discussed by patients on social media and to relate them to functional and symptomatic dimensions assessed in the internationally standardized self-administered questionnaires used in cancer clinical trials (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer [EORTC] Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 [QLQ-C30] and breast cancer module [QLQ-BR23]). First, we applied a classic text mining technique, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), to detect the different topics discussed on social media dealing with breast cancer. We applied the LDA model to 2 datasets composed of messages extracted from public Facebook groups and from a public health forum (cancerdusein.org, a French breast cancer forum) with relevant preprocessing. Second, we applied a customized Jaccard coefficient to automatically compute similarity distance between the topics detected with LDA and the questions in the self-administered questionnaires used to study quality of life. Among the 23 topics present in the self-administered questionnaires, 22 matched with the topics discussed by patients on social media. Interestingly, these topics corresponded to 95% (22/23) of the forum and 86% (20/23) of the Facebook group topics. These figures underline that topics related to quality of life are an important concern for patients. However, 5 social media topics had no corresponding topic in the questionnaires, which do not cover all of the patients' concerns. Of these 5 topics, 2 could potentially be used in the questionnaires, and these 2 topics corresponded to a total of 3.10% (523

Topical Ranibizumab as a Treatment of Corneal Neovascularization

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrari, Giulio; Dastjerdi, Mohammad H.; Okanobo, Andre; Cheng, Sheng-Fu; Amparo, Francisco; Nallasamy, Nambi; Dana, Reza

2014-01-01

Purpose To examine the effect of topical ranibizumab on clinically stable corneal neovascularization (NV). Methods This was a prospective, open-label, monocentric, uncontrolled, non-comparative study. Ten eyes of 9 patients with corneal NV received topical ranibizumab (1%) 4 times a day for 3 weeks with a follow-up of 16 weeks. The main corneal neovascularization outcome measures were: neovascular area (NA), the area occupied by the corneal neovessels; vessel caliber (VC), the mean diameter of the corneal neovessels; and invasion area (IA), the fraction of the total cornea area covered by the vessels. This study was conducted at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA, USA. Results Statistically significant decreases in NA (55.3%, P<0.001), which lasted through 16 weeks, and VC (59%, P<0.001), which continued to improve up to week 16, were observed after treatment. No significant decrease was observed in IA (12.3%, P=0.49). There was no statistically significant change in visual acuity or intraocular pressure. No adverse events ascribed to the treatment were noted. Conclusions Topical application of ranibizumab is effective in reducing the severity of corneal NV in the context of established corneal NV, mostly through decrease in VC rather than IA. PMID:23407316

Land Cover Classification Using Integrated Spectral, Temporal, and Spatial Features Derived from Remotely Sensed Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongguang Zhai

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Obtaining accurate and timely land cover information is an important topic in many remote sensing applications. Using satellite image time series data should achieve high-accuracy land cover classification. However, most satellite image time-series classification methods do not fully exploit the available data for mining the effective features to identify different land cover types. Therefore, a classification method that can take full advantage of the rich information provided by time-series data to improve the accuracy of land cover classification is needed. In this paper, a novel method for time-series land cover classification using spectral, temporal, and spatial information at an annual scale was introduced. Based on all the available data from time-series remote sensing images, a refined nonlinear dimensionality reduction method was used to extract the spectral and temporal features, and a modified graph segmentation method was used to extract the spatial features. The proposed classification method was applied in three study areas with land cover complexity, including Illinois, South Dakota, and Texas. All the Landsat time series data in 2014 were used, and different study areas have different amounts of invalid data. A series of comparative experiments were conducted on the annual time-series images using training data generated from Cropland Data Layer. The results demonstrated higher overall and per-class classification accuracies and kappa index values using the proposed spectral-temporal-spatial method compared to spectral-temporal classification methods. We also discuss the implications of this study and possibilities for future applications and developments of the method.

Current trends in methods for neutron diffusion calculations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adams, C.H.

1977-01-01

Current work and trends in the application of neutron diffusion theory to reactor design and analysis are reviewed. Specific topics covered include finite-difference methods, synthesis methods, nodal calculations, finite-elements and perturbation theory

Hybrid Method Simulation of Slender Marine Structures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Niels Hørbye

This present thesis consists of an extended summary and five appended papers concerning various aspects of the implementation of a hybrid method which combines classical simulation methods and artificial neural networks. The thesis covers three main topics. Common for all these topics...... only recognize patterns similar to those comprised in the data used to train the network. Fatigue life evaluation of marine structures often considers simulations of more than a hundred different sea states. Hence, in order for this method to be useful, the training data must be arranged so...... that a single neural network can cover all relevant sea states. The applicability and performance of the present hybrid method is demonstrated on a numerical model of a mooring line attached to a floating offshore platform. The second part of the thesis demonstrates how sequential neural networks can be used...

Coping with the node problem in quantum hydrodynamics: The covering function method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Babyuk, Dmytro; Wyatt, Robert E.

2004-01-01

A conceptually simple approach, the covering function method (CFM), is developed to cope with the node problem in the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics. As nodes begin to form in a scattering wave packet (detected by a monitor function), a nodeless covering wave function is added to it yielding a total function that is also nodeless. Both local and global choices for the covering function are described. The total and covering functions are then propagated separately in the hydrodynamic picture. At a later time, the actual wave function is recovered from the two propagated functions. The results obtained for Eckart barrier scattering in one dimension are in excellent agreement with exact results, even for very long propagation times t=1.2 ps. The capability of the CFM is also demonstrated for multidimensional propagation of a vibrationally excited wave packet

Topics in statistical data analysis for high-energy physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cowan, G.

2011-01-01

These lectures concert two topics that are becoming increasingly important in the analysis of high-energy physics data: Bayesian statistics and multivariate methods. In the Bayesian approach, we extend the interpretation of probability not only to cover the frequency of repeatable outcomes but also to include a degree of belief. In this way we are able to associate probability with a hypothesis and thus to answer directly questions that cannot be addressed easily with traditional frequentist methods. In multivariate analysis, we try to exploit as much information as possible from the characteristics that we measure for each event to distinguish between event types. In particular we will look at a method that has gained popularity in high-energy physics in recent years: the boosted decision tree. Finally, we give a brief sketch of how multivariate methods may be applied in a search for a new signal process. (author)

Specialists' meeting on fast reactor cover gas purification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

The tentative agenda was adopted by the participants without comment and was followed throughout the meeting. The following topics were discussed at the subsequent sessions of the meeting on 'Fast Reactor Cover Gas Purification': National Position Papers; Impurities: Sources and Measurement; Cover Gas Purification Techniques; Sodium Aerosol Trapping; Radiological Considerations. Based on the papers presented and the discussions following, session summaries and conclusions were prepared and are included in this report

Specialists' meeting on fast reactor cover gas purification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1987-07-01

The tentative agenda was adopted by the participants without comment and was followed throughout the meeting. The following topics were discussed at the subsequent sessions of the meeting on 'Fast Reactor Cover Gas Purification': National Position Papers; Impurities: Sources and Measurement; Cover Gas Purification Techniques; Sodium Aerosol Trapping; Radiological Considerations. Based on the papers presented and the discussions following, session summaries and conclusions were prepared and are included in this report.

Topics to be covered in safety analysis reports for nuclear power plants with pressurized water reactors or boiling water reactors in the F.R.G

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kohler, H.A.G.

1977-01-01

This manual aims at defining the standards to be used in Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants with Pressurized Water Reactors or Boiling Water Reactors in the Federal Republic of Germany. The topics to be covered are: Information about the site (geographic situation, settlement, industrial and military facilities, transport and communications, meteorological conditions, geological, hydrological and seismic conditions, radiological background), description of the power plant (building structures, safety vessel, reactor core, cooling system, ventilation systems, steam power plant, electrical facilities, systems for measurement and control), indication of operation (commissioning, operation, safety measures, radiation monitoring, organization), incident analysis (reactivity incidents, loss-of-coolant incidents, external impacts). (HP) [de

International meeting 'Selected topics on nuclear methods for non-nuclear applications'. Proceedings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stoyanov, Ch.

2007-01-01

The volume includes the presentations given on the International Meeting 'Selected Topics on Nuclear Methods for Non-nuclear Applications'. The meeting was organized by the Project CECOA. The Project 'CEnter for COoerative Activities' (CECOA) of the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy (INRNE) of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is part of the Program 'Creating of Infrastructure' of Bulgarian Ministry of Science and Education. The CECOA-project unifies the groups of INRNE doing research in the field of nuclear methods. Four Laboratories of INRNE are members of CECOA-project: Moessbauer Spectroscopy and Low Radioactivity Measurements, High-Resolution Gamma-Spectroscopy, Neutron Methods in Condensed Matter, Neutron Optics and Structure Analysis. Taking into account the leading role of education on nuclear physics the Project includes program devoted to the training on nuclear physics. The presented volume contains 23 contributed papers. The contributions are separated in 6 sections. The section 'Nano technology' includes 5 papers. The activity in this field within the Project reveals the collaboration with other Institutes of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences as well as large international contacts. The section 'Radioecology and Radioactive Waste' is two fold. Part of the contributions of the section manifests the connection of the CECOA with small enterprises. The contacts are on the level of common projects concerning the investigations, remediation and release of radioactively contaminated terrain, soils, water, buildings and materials around the former uranium processing industry. Another part of the section is devoted to the application of nuclear methods to the treatment of radioactive waste produced by nuclear power stations. The section 'Neutron Physics' reveals the activity within the Project connected with the study of new materials using polarized neutrons and neutron diffraction methods. The section 'Nuclear Physics' is an introduction to some

PREFACE: Topics in the application of scattering methods to investigate the structure and dynamics of soft condensed matter

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Sow-Hsin; Baglioni, Piero

2006-09-01

This special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter gathers together a series of contributions presented at the workshop entitled `Topics in the Application of Scattering Methods to Investigate the Structure and Dynamics of Soft Condensed Matter' held at Pensione Bencista, Fiesole, Italy, a wonderful Italian jewel tucked high in the hills above Florence. This immaculate 14th century villa is a feast for the eyes with antiques and original artwork everywhere you turn, and a stunning view of Florence, overlooking numerous villas and groves of olive trees. The meeting consisted of about 40 invited talks delivered by a selected group of prominent physicists and chemists from the USA, Mexico, Europe and Asia working in the fields of complex and glassy liquids. The topics covered by the talks included: simulations on the liquid-liquid transition phenomenon dynamic crossover in deeply supercooled confined water thermodynamics and dynamics of complex fluids dynamics of interfacial water structural arrest transitions in colloidal systems structure and dynamics in complex systems structure of supramolecular assemblies The choice of topics is obviously heavily biased toward the current interests of the two organizers of the workshop, in view of the fact that one of the incentives for organizing the meeting was to celebrate Sow-Hsin Chen’s life-long scientific activities on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The 21 articles presented in this issue are a state-of-the-art description of the different aspects reported at the workshop from all points of view---experimental, theoretical and numerical. The interdisciplinary nature of the talks should make this special issue of interest to a broad community of scientists involved in the study of the properties of complex fluids, soft condensed matter and disordered glassy systems. We are grateful to the Consorzio per lo Sviluppo dei Sistemi a Grande Interfase (CSGI), Florence, Italy and to the Materials Science Program of

Topics in Bioethics: A Development of Student Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keith A. Johnson

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Exposing students to current biotechnological and medical issues is eye-opening for many students in a way that is not always achieved through lecture-based learning. Lecture or investigative teaching styles provide a tremendous knowledge base for the students, but sometimes these teaching styles do not allow the student to fully develop, especially personal attitudes to issues in bioethics. Through online videos, Hollywood movies, guided readings and classroom discussions, students in this course are informed of some bioethical topics, encouraged to learn about other topics, and use this gained knowledge to develop personal positions regarding the value and/or risk of the issues. This course has been well-received by previous students as a favorite in terms of both topics covered and style.

Design review report, 241-S-102 cover plate review; TOPICAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

ADAMS, M.R.

1998-01-01

The design for the cover plate and lead plate for shielding on 241-S-102 was reviewed on 10/21/98. All Review Comment Record comments were resolved to the satisfaction of the reviewers. Additional comments were taken during the meeting and were also resolved. A design calculation for the Radiological Design Review Screening was presented as criteria for the use of 1 inch lead plate. The review concluded that the use of 2 inch steel plate and 1 inch lead plate provided the required safety function required by HNF-SD-WM-810-001, 5.3.2.20, Basis for Interim Operation. The design was approved with the incorporated comments as recorded on RCR's and meeting minutes

Finite cover method with mortar elements for elastoplasticity problems

Science.gov (United States)

Kurumatani, M.; Terada, K.

2005-06-01

Finite cover method (FCM) is extended to elastoplasticity problems. The FCM, which was originally developed under the name of manifold method, has recently been recognized as one of the generalized versions of finite element methods (FEM). Since the mesh for the FCM can be regular and squared regardless of the geometry of structures to be analyzed, structural analysts are released from a burdensome task of generating meshes conforming to physical boundaries. Numerical experiments are carried out to assess the performance of the FCM with such discretization in elastoplasticity problems. Particularly to achieve this accurately, the so-called mortar elements are introduced to impose displacement boundary conditions on the essential boundaries, and displacement compatibility conditions on material interfaces of two-phase materials or on joint surfaces between mutually incompatible meshes. The validity of the mortar approximation is also demonstrated in the elastic-plastic FCM.

Topical botulinum toxin.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Ashley; Nasir, Adnan

2010-03-01

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing discipline that capitalizes on the unique properties of matter engineered on the nanoscale. Vehicles incorporating nanotechnology have led to great strides in drug delivery, allowing for increased active ingredient stability, bioavailability, and site-specific targeting. Botulinum toxin has historically been used for the correction of neurological and neuromuscular disorders, such as torticollis, blepharospasm, and strabismus. Recent dermatological indications have been for the management of axillary hyperhydrosis and facial rhytides. Traditional methods of botulinum toxin delivery have been needle-based. These have been associated with increased pain and cost. Newer methods of botulinum toxin formulation have yielded topical preparations that are bioactive in small pilot clinical studies. While there are some risks associated with topical delivery, the refinement and standardization of delivery systems and techniques for the topical administration of botulinum toxin using nanotechnology is anticipated in the near future.

Alternative method to validate the seasonal land cover regions of the conterminous United States

Science.gov (United States)

Zhiliang Zhu; Donald O. Ohlen; Raymond L. Czaplewski; Robert E. Burgan

1996-01-01

An accuracy assessment method involving double sampling and the multivariate composite estimator has been used to validate the prototype seasonal land cover characteristics database of the conterminous United States. The database consists of 159 land cover classes, classified using time series of 1990 1-km satellite data and augmented with ancillary data including...

Developments in functional equations and related topics

CERN Document Server

Ciepliński, Krzysztof; Rassias, Themistocles

2017-01-01

This book presents current research on Ulam stability for functional equations and inequalities. Contributions from renowned scientists emphasize fundamental and new results, methods and techniques. Detailed examples are given to theories to further understanding at the graduate level for students in mathematics, physics, and engineering. Key topics covered in this book include: Quasi means Approximate isometries Functional equations in hypergroups Stability of functional equations Fischer-Muszély equation Haar meager sets and Haar null sets Dynamical systems Functional equations in probability theory Stochastic convex ordering Dhombres functional equation Nonstandard analysis and Ulam stability This book is dedicated in memory of Staniłsaw Marcin Ulam, who posed the fundamental problem concerning approximate homomorphisms of groups in 1940; which has provided the stimulus for studies in the stability of functional equations and inequalities.

Evaluation of skin absorption of drugs from topical and transdermal formulations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Luís Morais Ruela

Full Text Available ABSTRACT The skin barrier function has been attributed to the stratum corneum and represents a major challenge in clinical practice pertaining to cutaneous administration of drugs. Despite this, a large number of bioactive compounds have been successfully administered via cutaneous administration because of advances in the design of topical and transdermal formulations. In vitro and in vivo evaluations of these novel drug delivery systems are necessary to characterize their quality and efficacy. This review covers the most well-known methods for assessing the cutaneous absorption of drugs as an auxiliary tool for pharmaceutical formulation scientists in the design of drug delivery systems. In vitro methods as skin permeation assays using Franz-type diffusion cells, cutaneous retention and tape-stripping methods to study the cutaneous penetration of drugs, and in vivo evaluations as pre-clinical pharmacokinetic studies in animal models are discussed. Alternative approaches to cutaneous microdialysis are also covered. Recent advances in research on skin absorption of drugs and the effect of skin absorption enhancers, as investigated using confocal laser scanning microscopy, Raman confocal microscopy, and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, are reviewed.

Modern topics in electron scattering

CERN Document Server

Frois, Bernard

1991-01-01

This book summarizes the considerable progress recently achieved in the understanding of nucleon and nuclear structure by using high energy electrons as a probe. A collection of papers discusses in detail the new frontiers of this field. Experimental and theoretical articles cover topics such as the structure of the nucleon, nucleon distributions, many-body correlations, non-nucleonic degrees of freedom and few-body systems. This book is an up-to-date introduction to the research planned with continuous beam electron accelerators.

Analysis of numerical methods

CERN Document Server

Isaacson, Eugene

1994-01-01

This excellent text for advanced undergraduates and graduate students covers norms, numerical solution of linear systems and matrix factoring, iterative solutions of nonlinear equations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, polynomial approximation, and other topics. It offers a careful analysis and stresses techniques for developing new methods, plus many examples and problems. 1966 edition.

Antimicrobial topical agents used in the vagina.

Science.gov (United States)

Frey Tirri, Brigitte

2011-01-01

Vaginally applied antimicrobial agents are widely used in the vagina in women with lower genital tract infections. An 'antimicrobial' is a general term that refers to a group of drugs that are effective against bacteria, fungi, viruses and protozoa. Topical treatments can be prescribed for a wide variety of vaginal infections. Many bacterial infections, such as bacterial vaginosis, desquamative inflammatory vaginitis or, as some European authors call it, aerobic vaginitis as well as infection with Staphylococcus aureus or group A streptococci, may be treated in this way. Candida vulvovaginitis is a fungal infection that is very amenable to topical treatment. The most common viral infections which can be treated with topical medications are condylomata acuminata and herpes simplex. The most often encountered protozoal vaginitis, which is caused by Trichomonas vaginalis, may be susceptible to topical medications, although this infection is treated systemically. This chapter covers the wide variety of commonly used topical antimicrobial agents for these diseases and focuses on the individual therapeutic agents and their clinical efficacy. In addition, potential difficulties that can occur in practice, as well as the usage of these medications in the special setting of pregnancy, are described in this chapter. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Evapotranspiration (ET) covers.

Science.gov (United States)

Rock, Steve; Myers, Bill; Fiedler, Linda

2012-01-01

about specific projects using ET covers. There are three general approaches for non-conventional cover systems to achieve approval for installation; the first is when equivalent performance to conventional final cover systems can be demonstrated directly on site. This is the approach used by the Sandia study, by most ACAP sites, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. A second approach is used when there are data from a site specific study such as an ACAP installation at a site that has analogous soil and climate conditions. Several sites in Colorado and Southern California have achieved approval based on data from similar sites. The third most common approach for regulatory approval is by installation of data collection systems with the agreement that the permanence of the ET cover installation is contingent on success of the cover in meeting certain performance goals. This article is intended as an introduction to the topic and is not intended to serve as guidance for design or construction, nor indicate the appropriateness of using an ET cover systems at a particular site.

Statistical physics of hard combinatorial optimization: Vertex cover problem

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Jin-Hua; Zhou, Hai-Jun

2014-07-01

Typical-case computation complexity is a research topic at the boundary of computer science, applied mathematics, and statistical physics. In the last twenty years, the replica-symmetry-breaking mean field theory of spin glasses and the associated message-passing algorithms have greatly deepened our understanding of typical-case computation complexity. In this paper, we use the vertex cover problem, a basic nondeterministic-polynomial (NP)-complete combinatorial optimization problem of wide application, as an example to introduce the statistical physical methods and algorithms. We do not go into the technical details but emphasize mainly the intuitive physical meanings of the message-passing equations. A nonfamiliar reader shall be able to understand to a large extent the physics behind the mean field approaches and to adjust the mean field methods in solving other optimization problems.

Humic substances and its distribution in coffee crop under cover crops and weed control methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruno Henrique Martins

2016-08-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Humic substances (HS comprise the passive element in soil organic matter (SOM, and represent one of the soil carbon pools which may be altered by different cover crops and weed control methods. This study aimed to assess HS distribution and characteristics in an experimental coffee crop area subjected to cover crops and cultural, mechanical, and chemical weed control. The study was carried out at Londrina, in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil (23°21’30” S; 51°10’17” W. In 2008, seven weed control/cover crops were established in a randomized block design between two coffee rows as the main-plot factor per plot and soil sampling depths (0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, 20-30 cm and 30-40 cm as a split-plot. HS were extracted through alkaline and acid solutions and analyzed by chromic acid wet oxidation and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Chemical attributes presented variations in the topsoil between the field conditions analyzed. Cover crop cutting and coffee tree pruning residues left on the soil surface may have interfered in nutrient cycling and the humification process. Data showed that humic substances comprised about 50 % of SOM. Although different cover crops and weed control methods did not alter humic and fulvic acid carbon content, a possible incidence of condensed aromatic structures at depth increments in fulvic acids was observed, leading to an average decrease of 53 % in the E4/E6 ratio. Humin carbon content increased 25 % in the topsoil, particularly under crop weed-control methods, probably due to high incorporation of recalcitrant structures from coffee tree pruning residues and cover crops.

Analysis method for the design of transport packaging shock absorbing end covers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nolan, D.J.; Fernandez, C.; Miller, C.

1983-01-01

The analysis method used to design the shock absorbing end covers of the Transnuclear TN-12Y transport packaging is described. The method uses the basic equations of motion (i.e. F = ma) which were programmed for computation with an Apple II computer. Inertia loadings for various positions of the model with respect to the target surface were calculated to determine the worst position to meet the requirements of 10CFR71. For most cover designs evaluated the inertia loading for small angles of inclination at impact with the target surface were larger than for a horizontal position because of the slap-down effect. Different crushable materials were evaluated including the effect of their variation in crushing stress and locking strain. The design was optimized to limit the maximum inertia loadings for the worst impact position to a value of 100 g. 8 references

Impact of a Modified Jigsaw Method for Learning an Unfamiliar, Complex Topic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Denise Kolanczyk

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Objective: The aim of this study was to use the jigsaw method with an unfamiliar, complex topic and to evaluate the effectiveness of the jigsaw teaching method on student learning of assigned material (“jigsaw expert” versus non-assigned material (“jigsaw learner”. Innovation: The innovation was implemented in an advanced cardiology elective. Forty students were assigned a pre-reading and one of four valvular heart disorders, a topic not previously taught in the curriculum. A pre-test and post-test evaluated overall student learning. Student performance on pre/post tests as the “jigsaw expert” and “jigsaw learner” was also compared. Critical Analysis: Overall, the post-test mean score of 85.75% was significantly higher than that of the pre-test score of 56.75% (p<0.05. There was significant improvement in scores regardless of whether the material was assigned (“jigsaw experts” pre=58.8% and post=82.5%; p<0.05 or not assigned (“jigsaw learners” pre= 56.25% and post= 86.56%, p<0.05 for pre-study. Next Steps: The use of the jigsaw method to teach unfamiliar, complex content helps students to become both teachers and active listeners, which are essential to the skills and professionalism of a health care provider. Further studies are needed to evaluate use of the jigsaw method to teach unfamiliar, complex content on long-term retention and to further examine the effects of expert vs. non-expert roles. Conflict of Interest We declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received, employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties.   Type: Note

The Effects of Topic Familiarity, Author Expertise, and Content Relevance on Norwegian Students' Document Selection: A Mixed Methods Study

Science.gov (United States)

McCrudden, Matthew T.; Stenseth, Tonje; Bråten, Ivar; Strømsø, Helge I.

2016-01-01

This mixed methods study investigated the extent to which author expertise and content relevance were salient to secondary Norwegian students (N = 153) when they selected documents that pertained to more familiar and less familiar topics. Quantitative results indicated that author expertise was more salient for the less familiar topic (nuclear…

Analyzing research trends on drug safety using topic modeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Chen

2018-04-06

Published drug safety data has evolved in the past decade due to scientific and technological advances in the relevant research fields. Considering that a vast amount of scientific literature has been published in this area, it is not easy to identify the key information. Topic modeling has emerged as a powerful tool to extract meaningful information from a large volume of unstructured texts. Areas covered: We analyzed the titles and abstracts of 4347 articles in four journals dedicated to drug safety from 2007 to 2016. We applied Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model to extract 50 main topics, and conducted trend analysis to explore the temporal popularity of these topics over years. Expert Opinion/Commentary: We found that 'benefit-risk assessment and communication', 'diabetes' and 'biologic therapy for autoimmune diseases' are the top 3 most published topics. The topics relevant to the use of electronic health records/observational data for safety surveillance are becoming increasingly popular over time. Meanwhile, there is a slight decrease in research on signal detection based on spontaneous reporting, although spontaneous reporting still plays an important role in benefit-risk assessment. The topics related to medical conditions and treatment showed highly dynamic patterns over time.

Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain due to soft tissue injury: diclofenac epolamine topical patch.

Science.gov (United States)

Lionberger, David R; Brennan, Michael J

2010-11-10

The objective of this article is to review published clinical data on diclofenac epolamine topical patch 1.3% (DETP) in the treatment of acute soft tissue injuries, such as strains, sprains, and contusions. Review of published literature on topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), diclofenac, and DETP in patients with acute soft tissue injuries was included. Relevant literature was identified on MEDLINE using the search terms topical NSAIDs, diclofenac, diclofenac epolamine, acute pain, sports injury, soft tissue injury, strain, sprain, and contusion, and from citations in retrieved articles covering the years 1978-2008. Review of published, randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses shows that topical NSAIDs are significantly more effective than placebo in relieving acute pain; the pooled average relative benefit was 1.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.5-1.9). In a limited number of comparisons, topical and oral NSAIDs provided comparable pain relief, but the use of topical agents produced lower plasma drug concentrations and fewer systemic adverse events (AEs). The physical-chemical properties of diclofenac epolamine make it well suited for topical use. In patients with acute soft tissue injuries treated with DETP, clinical data report an analgesic benefit within hours of the first application, and significant pain relief relative to placebo within 3 days. Moreover, DETP displayed tolerability comparable with placebo; the most common AEs were pruritus and other application site reactions. Review of published literature suggests that DETP is generally safe and well tolerated, clinically efficacious, and a rational treatment option for patients experiencing acute pain associated with strains, sprains, and contusions, and other localized painful conditions.

Topical methotrexate pretreatment enhances the therapeutic effect of topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy on hamster buccal pouch precancers

OpenAIRE

Deng-Fu Yang; Jeng-Woei Lee; Hsin-Ming Chen; Yih-Chih Hsu

2014-01-01

Topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is effective for treatment of human oral precancerous lesions. This animal study aimed to assess whether topical methotrexate (MTX) pretreatment could enhance the therapeutic effect of topical ALA-PDT on hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions. Methods: Twenty hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions were treated with either topical ALA-PDT with topical MTX pretreatment (topical MTX-ALA-PDT group, n = 10) or topical A...

Comparison of two Classification methods (MLC and SVM) to extract land use and land cover in Johor Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Rokni Deilmai, B.; Ahmad, B. Bin; Zabihi, H.

2014-06-01

Mapping is essential for the analysis of the land use and land cover, which influence many environmental processes and properties. For the purpose of the creation of land cover maps, it is important to minimize error. These errors will propagate into later analyses based on these land cover maps. The reliability of land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data depends on an accurate classification. In this study, we have analyzed multispectral data using two different classifiers including Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). To pursue this aim, Landsat Thematic Mapper data and identical field-based training sample datasets in Johor Malaysia used for each classification method, which results indicate in five land cover classes forest, oil palm, urban area, water, rubber. Classification results indicate that SVM was more accurate than MLC. With demonstrated capability to produce reliable cover results, the SVM methods should be especially useful for land cover classification.

Comparison of two Classification methods (MLC and SVM) to extract land use and land cover in Johor Malaysia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deilmai, B Rokni; Ahmad, B Bin; Zabihi, H

2014-01-01

Mapping is essential for the analysis of the land use and land cover, which influence many environmental processes and properties. For the purpose of the creation of land cover maps, it is important to minimize error. These errors will propagate into later analyses based on these land cover maps. The reliability of land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data depends on an accurate classification. In this study, we have analyzed multispectral data using two different classifiers including Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). To pursue this aim, Landsat Thematic Mapper data and identical field-based training sample datasets in Johor Malaysia used for each classification method, which results indicate in five land cover classes forest, oil palm, urban area, water, rubber. Classification results indicate that SVM was more accurate than MLC. With demonstrated capability to produce reliable cover results, the SVM methods should be especially useful for land cover classification

Developing Methods for Fraction Cover Estimation Toward Global Mapping of Ecosystem Composition

Science.gov (United States)

Roberts, D. A.; Thompson, D. R.; Dennison, P. E.; Green, R. O.; Kokaly, R. F.; Pavlick, R.; Schimel, D.; Stavros, E. N.

2016-12-01

Terrestrial vegetation seldom covers an entire pixel due to spatial mixing at many scales. Estimating the fractional contributions of photosynthetic green vegetation (GV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and substrate (soil, rock, etc.) to mixed spectra can significantly improve quantitative remote measurement of terrestrial ecosystems. Traditional methods for estimating fractional vegetation cover rely on vegetation indices that are sensitive to variable substrate brightness, NPV and sun-sensor geometry. Spectral mixture analysis (SMA) is an alternate framework that provides estimates of fractional cover. However, simple SMA, in which the same set of endmembers is used for an entire image, fails to account for natural spectral variability within a cover class. Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) is a variant of SMA that allows the number and types of pure spectra to vary on a per-pixel basis, thereby accounting for endmember variability and generating more accurate cover estimates, but at a higher computational cost. Routine generation and delivery of GV, NPV, and substrate (S) fractions using MESMA is currently in development for large, diverse datasets acquired by the Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS). We present initial results, including our methodology for ensuring consistency and generalizability of fractional cover estimates across a wide range of regions, seasons, and biomes. We also assess uncertainty and provide a strategy for validation. GV, NPV, and S fractions are an important precursor for deriving consistent measurements of ecosystem parameters such as plant stress and mortality, functional trait assessment, disturbance susceptibility and recovery, and biomass and carbon stock assessment. Copyright 2016 California Institute of Technology. All Rights Reserved. We acknowledge support of the US Government, NASA, the Earth Science Division and Terrestrial Ecology program.

Spectral Learning for Supervised Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Yong; Wang, Yining; Zhu, Jun

2018-03-01

Supervised topic models simultaneously model the latent topic structure of large collections of documents and a response variable associated with each document. Existing inference methods are based on variational approximation or Monte Carlo sampling, which often suffers from the local minimum defect. Spectral methods have been applied to learn unsupervised topic models, such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), with provable guarantees. This paper investigates the possibility of applying spectral methods to recover the parameters of supervised LDA (sLDA). We first present a two-stage spectral method, which recovers the parameters of LDA followed by a power update method to recover the regression model parameters. Then, we further present a single-phase spectral algorithm to jointly recover the topic distribution matrix as well as the regression weights. Our spectral algorithms are provably correct and computationally efficient. We prove a sample complexity bound for each algorithm and subsequently derive a sufficient condition for the identifiability of sLDA. Thorough experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets verify the theory and demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the spectral algorithms. In fact, our results on a large-scale review rating dataset demonstrate that our single-phase spectral algorithm alone gets comparable or even better performance than state-of-the-art methods, while previous work on spectral methods has rarely reported such promising performance.

What’s all the talk about? Topic modelling in a mental health Internet support group

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bradley Carron-Arthur

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The majority of content in an Internet Support Group (ISG is contributed by 1 % of the users (‘super users’. Computational methods, such as topic modelling, can provide a large-scale quantitative objective description of this content. Such methods may provide a new perspective on the nature of engagement on ISGs including the role of super users and their possible effect on other users. Methods A topic model was computed for all posts (N = 131,004 in the ISG BlueBoard using Latent Dirichlet Allocation. A model containing 25 topics was selected on the basis of intelligibility as determined by diagnostic metrics and qualitative investigation. This model yielded 21 substantive topics for further analysis. Two chi-square tests were conducted separately for each topic to ascertain: (i if the odds of super users’ and other users’ posting differed for each topic; and (ii if for super users the odds of posting differed depending on whether the response was to a super user or to another user. Results The 21 substantive topics covered a range of issues related to mental health and peer-support. There were significantly higher odds that super users wrote content on 13 topics, with the greatest effects being for Parenting Role (OR [95%CI] = 7.97 [7.85–8.10], Co-created Fiction (4.22 [4.17–4.27], Mental Illness (3.13 [3.11–3.16] and Positive Change (2.82 [2.79–2.84]. There were significantly lower odds for super users on 7 topics, with the greatest effects being for the topics Depression (OR = 0.27 [0.27–0.28], Medication (0.36 [0.36–0.37], Therapy (0.55 [0.54–0.55] and Anxiety (0.55 [0.55–0.55]. However, super users were significantly more likely to write content on 5 out of these 7 topics when responding to other users than when responding to fellow super users. Conclusions The findings suggest that super users serve the role of emotionally supportive companions with a focus on topics broadly

Multilayered nanostructured coverings generated by a method of ion beam sputtering in vacuum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Il'yushenko, A.F.; Andreev, M.A.; Markova, L.V.; Lisovskaya, Yu. O.

2013-01-01

Technological process of the formation of multilayered coverings by ion -beam sputtering is developed. At research of samples by method of AFM it is established, that the heating of a substrate leads to formation of rather large grains up to 100 nanometers in size, consisting of dispersed subgrains in the size 10-25 nanometers. The obtained results allow to say that in the course of formation of coverings interphase borders of section in one layer and section border between coat layers are formed. The use of a method of Electron Backscatter Diffraction Analysis (EBSD) has helped to confirm that the at ion-beam sputtering, ultrafine diamonds remain their diamond-like structure when migrating to the surface of the coating. It is found that with increasing number of monolayers coating microhardness increases. However, this relationship is described by a nonlinear and exponential model. (authors)

Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of pain due to soft tissue injury: diclofenac epolamine topical patch

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David R Lionberger

2010-11-01

Full Text Available David R Lionberger1, Michael J Brennan21Southwest Orthopedic Group, Houston, TX, USA; 2Department of Medicine, Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, CT, USAAbstract: The objective of this article is to review published clinical data on diclofenac epolamine topical patch 1.3% (DETP in the treatment of acute soft tissue injuries, such as strains, sprains, and contusions. Review of published literature on topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, diclofenac, and DETP in patients with acute soft tissue injuries was included. Relevant literature was identified on MEDLINE using the search terms topical NSAIDs, diclofenac, diclofenac epolamine, acute pain, sports injury, soft tissue injury, strain, sprain, and contusion, and from citations in retrieved articles covering the years 1978–2008. Review of published, randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses shows that topical NSAIDs are significantly more effective than placebo in relieving acute pain; the pooled average relative benefit was 1.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.5–1.9. In a limited number of comparisons, topical and oral NSAIDs provided comparable pain relief, but the use of topical agents produced lower plasma drug concentrations and fewer systemic adverse events (AEs. The physical–chemical properties of diclofenac epolamine make it well suited for topical use. In patients with acute soft tissue injuries treated with DETP, clinical data report an analgesic benefit within hours of the first application, and significant pain relief relative to placebo within 3 days. Moreover, DETP displayed tolerability comparable with placebo; the most common AEs were pruritus and other application site reactions. Review of published literature suggests that DETP is generally safe and well tolerated, clinically efficacious, and a rational treatment option for patients experiencing acute pain associated with strains, sprains, and contusions, and other localized painful conditions

11. international topical meeting on nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics (NURETH-11)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lemonnier, H.

2005-01-01

The main topics covered by the NURETH 11 meeting are the thermal-hydraulics of existing and future nuclear power plants as foreseen by the Generation IV worldwide initiative. Normal operation and accidental situations are also relevant topics of the Conference. The topics cover modeling, experiments, instrumentation and numerical simulations related to flow and heat transfer in nuclear reactors with a special emphasis on the advances of multiphase CFD methods. The first part of this Book of Abstracts enumerates the Organizing Scientific Societies, the Sponsors of the Conference, the Conference Chairs, and the members of the Steering Committee and of the Technical Program Committee. The second part of this Book of Abstracts contains the list of the titles of the contributed papers. Each item includes the log number of the paper, the abstract of which can therefore be easily located in the next section of this book. The titles of the papers have been sorted out by topics to provide a synthetic view of the contributions in a selected domain. The last section of this Book includes an index of authors and co-authors with a reference to the log number(s) of their contributed paper(s). Finally, the CD-Rom of the Conference Proceedings containing the full-length papers is inserted at the inside back cover. Sessions content: A - two-phase flow and heat transfer fundamentals: computational and mathematical techniques (numerical schemes, LBM, BEM, mesh-less, etc.); contact angle and wettability phenomena; experiments and data bases for the assessment and the verification of 3D models; flow regime identification and modelling; heat transfer near critical pressure and supercritical water reactors; interfacial area (data base, modeling, measurement techniques); instrumentation techniques; micro-scale basic phenomena, fluid flow and heat transfer; scaling methods; counter current flow; B - code developments: containment analysis; core thermal-hydraulics and subchannel analysis

Comparison of pixel -based and artificial neural networks classification methods for detecting forest cover changes in Malaysia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deilmai, B R; Rasib, A W; Ariffin, A; Kanniah, K D

2014-01-01

According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), Malaysia lost 8.6% of its forest cover between 1990 and 2005. In forest cover change detection, remote sensing plays an important role. A lot of change detection methods have been developed, and most of them are semi-automated. These methods are time consuming and difficult to apply. One of the new and robust methods for change detection is artificial neural network (ANN). In this study, (ANN) classification scheme is used to detect the forest cover changes in the Johor state in Malaysia. Landsat Thematic Mapper images covering a period of 9 years (2000 and 2009) are used. Results obtained with ANN technique was compared with Maximum likelihood classification (MLC) to investigate whether ANN can perform better in the tropical environment. Overall accuracy of the ANN and MLC techniques are 75%, 68% (2000) and 80%, 75% (2009) respectively. Using the ANN method, it was found that forest area in Johor decreased as much as 1298 km2 between 2000 and 2009. The results also showed the potential and advantages of neural network in classification and change detection analysis

Comparison of feature extraction methods within a spatio-temporal land cover change detection framework

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Kleynhans, W

2011-07-01

Full Text Available OF FEATURE EXTRACTION METHODS WITHIN A SPATIO-TEMPORAL LAND COVER CHANGE DETECTION FRAMEWORK ??W. Kleynhans,, ??B.P. Salmon, ?J.C. Olivier, ?K.J. Wessels, ?F. van den Bergh ? Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engi- neering University of Pretoria, South... Bergh, and K. Steenkamp, ?Improving land cover class separation using an extended Kalman filter on MODIS NDVI time series data,? IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 381?385, Apr. 2010. ...

Particle-transport simulation with the Monte Carlo method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carter, L.L.; Cashwell, E.D.

1975-01-01

Attention is focused on the application of the Monte Carlo method to particle transport problems, with emphasis on neutron and photon transport. Topics covered include sampling methods, mathematical prescriptions for simulating particle transport, mechanics of simulating particle transport, neutron transport, and photon transport. A literature survey of 204 references is included. (GMT)

Land use and land cover change based on historical space-time model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Qiong; Zhang, Chi; Liu, Min; Zhang, Yongjing

2016-09-01

Land use and cover change is a leading edge topic in the current research field of global environmental changes and case study of typical areas is an important approach understanding global environmental changes. Taking the Qiantang River (Zhejiang, China) as an example, this study explores automatic classification of land use using remote sensing technology and analyzes historical space-time change by remote sensing monitoring. This study combines spectral angle mapping (SAM) with multi-source information and creates a convenient and efficient high-precision land use computer automatic classification method which meets the application requirements and is suitable for complex landform of the studied area. This work analyzes the histological space-time characteristics of land use and cover change in the Qiantang River basin in 2001, 2007 and 2014, in order to (i) verify the feasibility of studying land use change with remote sensing technology, (ii) accurately understand the change of land use and cover as well as historical space-time evolution trend, (iii) provide a realistic basis for the sustainable development of the Qiantang River basin and (iv) provide a strong information support and new research method for optimizing the Qiantang River land use structure and achieving optimal allocation of land resources and scientific management.

Verification of a Novel Method of Detecting Faults in Medium-Voltage Systems with Covered Conductors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mišák Stanislav

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the use of new methods of detecting faults in medium-voltage overhead lines built of covered conductors. The methods mainly address such faults as falling of a conductor, contacting a conductor with a tree branch, or falling a tree branch across three phases of a medium-voltage conductor. These faults cannot be detected by current digital relay protection systems. Therefore, a new system that can detect the above mentioned faults was developed. After having tested its operation, the system has already been implemented to protect mediumvoltage overhead lines built of covered conductors.

Topics in radiation dosimetry radiation dosimetry

CERN Document Server

1972-01-01

Radiation Dosimetry, Supplement 1: Topics in Radiation Dosimetry covers instruments and techniques in dealing with special dosimetry problems. The book discusses thermoluminescence dosimetry in archeological dating; dosimetric applications of track etching; vacuum chambers of radiation measurement. The text also describes wall-less detectors in microdosimetry; dosimetry of low-energy X-rays; and the theory and general applicability of the gamma-ray theory of track effects to various systems. Dose equivalent determinations in neutron fields by means of moderator techniques; as well as developm

Non-invasive Oil-Based Method to Increase Topical Delivery of Nucleic Acids to Skin.

Science.gov (United States)

Vij, Manika; Alam, Shamshad; Gupta, Nidhi; Gotherwal, Vishvabandhu; Gautam, Hemlata; Ansari, Kausar M; Santhiya, Deenan; Natarajan, Vivek T; Ganguli, Munia

2017-06-07

Topical delivery of nucleic acids to skin has huge prospects in developing therapeutic interventions for cutaneous disorders. In spite of initial success, clinical translation is vastly impeded by the constraints of bioavailability as well as stability in metabolically active environment of skin. Various physical and chemical methods used to overcome these limitations involve invasive procedures or compounds that compromise skin integrity. Hence, there is an increasing demand for developing safe skin penetration enhancers for efficient nucleic acid delivery to skin. Here, we demonstrate that pretreatment of skin with silicone oil can increase the transfection efficiency of non-covalently associated peptide-plasmid DNA nanocomplexes in skin ex vivo and in vivo. The method does not compromise skin integrity, as indicated by microscopic evaluation of cellular differentiation, tissue architecture, enzyme activity assessment, dye penetration tests using Franz assay, and cytotoxicity and immunogenicity analyses. Stability of nanocomplexes is not hampered on pretreatment, thereby avoiding nuclease-mediated degradation. The mechanistic insights through Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy reveal some alterations in the skin hydration status owing to possible occlusion effects of the enhancer. Overall, we describe a topical, non-invasive, efficient, and safe method that can be used to increase the penetration and delivery of plasmid DNA to skin for possible therapeutic applications. Copyright © 2017 The American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Topical Session on Materials Management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-01-01

At its second meeting, in Paris, 5-7 December 2001, the WPDD held two topical sessions on the D and D Safety Case and on the Management of Materials from D and D, respectively. This report documents the topical session on the management of materials. Presentations during the topical session covered key aspects of the management of materials and meant to provide an exchange of information and experience, including: Experience and lessons learnt from VLLW and non-radioactive material management in Spain and Germany with special attention to recycling (How specific solutions came about? Are there 'generic' examples for wider adoption?); Risk assessment of recycling and non-recycling: a CPD study; Waste acceptance issues within different national contexts (What constraints are there on the waste receiving body and what flexibility can the latter have? What constraints does this impose on D and D implementers? What about wastes are without current solution? What needs to be done? What about large items and 'difficult' waste in general?); Radiological characterisation of materials during decommissioning, particularly difficult situations - large volumes, large items,.. wastes, heterogeneous streams (What examples of established practice? What are the approaches or aspects that set the regulatory requirements? How can the flow rates be large but the answers acceptable? How much is needed to be known for later action, e. g., disposal, release, protection of worker, etc.); Radiological characterisation of buildings as they stand, in order to allow conventional demolition (What are strategies for optimisation of characterisation? How much needs to be known to take action later? e.g. for storage, disposal, release, cost estimation and ALARA? What needs to be done in advance and after decommissioning/dismantling?). At the end of each presentation time was allotted for discussion of the paper. Integral to the Topical Session was a facilitated plenary discussion on the topical

Implementation of Active Teaching Methods and Emerging Topics in Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Subjects

Science.gov (United States)

Kosmatin Fras, M.; Grigillo, D.

2016-06-01

Fast technological developments in photogrammetry and remote sensing areas demand quick and steady changes in the education programme and its realization. The university teachers and assistants are faced with ensuring the learning materials, data and software for practical lessons, as well as project proposals for student's team work and bachelor or master thesis. In this paper the emerging topics that already have a considerable impact in the practice are treated mostly from the educational aspect. These relatively new topics that are considered in this paper are unmanned aerial systems for spatial data collection, terrestrial and aerial laser scanning, mobile mapping systems, and novelties in satellite remote sensing. The focus is given to practical implementation of these topics into the teaching and learning programme of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, and experiences gained by the authors so far. Together with the technological advances, the teaching approaches must be modernized as well. Classical approaches of teaching, where a lecturer gives lecture ex cathedra and students are only listeners, are not effective enough. The didactics science of teaching has developed and proved in the practice many useful approaches that can better motivate students for more active learning. We can use different methods of team work like pro et contra debate, buzzing groups, press conference, moderated discussion etc. An experimental study on active teaching methods in the class of students of the Master programme of Geodesy and Geoinformation has been made and the results are presented. After using some new teaching methods in the class, the students were asked to answer two types of a questionnaire. First questionnaire was the standard form developed by Noel Entwistle, an educational psychologist who developed the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) for identifying deep and surface approaches to

IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTIVE TEACHING METHODS AND EMERGING TOPICS IN PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING SUBJECTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Kosmatin Fras

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Fast technological developments in photogrammetry and remote sensing areas demand quick and steady changes in the education programme and its realization. The university teachers and assistants are faced with ensuring the learning materials, data and software for practical lessons, as well as project proposals for student’s team work and bachelor or master thesis. In this paper the emerging topics that already have a considerable impact in the practice are treated mostly from the educational aspect. These relatively new topics that are considered in this paper are unmanned aerial systems for spatial data collection, terrestrial and aerial laser scanning, mobile mapping systems, and novelties in satellite remote sensing. The focus is given to practical implementation of these topics into the teaching and learning programme of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, and experiences gained by the authors so far. Together with the technological advances, the teaching approaches must be modernized as well. Classical approaches of teaching, where a lecturer gives lecture ex cathedra and students are only listeners, are not effective enough. The didactics science of teaching has developed and proved in the practice many useful approaches that can better motivate students for more active learning. We can use different methods of team work like pro et contra debate, buzzing groups, press conference, moderated discussion etc. An experimental study on active teaching methods in the class of students of the Master programme of Geodesy and Geoinformation has been made and the results are presented. After using some new teaching methods in the class, the students were asked to answer two types of a questionnaire. First questionnaire was the standard form developed by Noel Entwistle, an educational psychologist who developed the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI for identifying deep and

Updating the 2001 National Land Cover Database Impervious Surface Products to 2006 using Landsat imagery change detection methods

Science.gov (United States)

Xian, George; Homer, Collin G.

2010-01-01

A prototype method was developed to update the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001 to a nominal date of 2006. NLCD 2001 is widely used as a baseline for national land cover and impervious cover conditions. To enable the updating of this database in an optimal manner, methods are designed to be accomplished by individual Landsat scene. Using conservative change thresholds based on land cover classes, areas of change and no-change were segregated from change vectors calculated from normalized Landsat scenes from 2001 and 2006. By sampling from NLCD 2001 impervious surface in unchanged areas, impervious surface predictions were estimated for changed areas within an urban extent defined by a companion land cover classification. Methods were developed and tested for national application across six study sites containing a variety of urban impervious surface. Results show the vast majority of impervious surface change associated with urban development was captured, with overall RMSE from 6.86 to 13.12% for these areas. Changes of urban development density were also evaluated by characterizing the categories of change by percentile for impervious surface. This prototype method provides a relatively low cost, flexible approach to generate updated impervious surface using NLCD 2001 as the baseline.

A comprehensive change detection method for updating the National Land Cover Database to circa 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Suming; Yang, Limin; Danielson, Patrick; Homer, Collin G.; Fry, Joyce; Xian, George

2013-01-01

The importance of characterizing, quantifying, and monitoring land cover, land use, and their changes has been widely recognized by global and environmental change studies. Since the early 1990s, three U.S. National Land Cover Database (NLCD) products (circa 1992, 2001, and 2006) have been released as free downloads for users. The NLCD 2006 also provides land cover change products between 2001 and 2006. To continue providing updated national land cover and change datasets, a new initiative in developing NLCD 2011 is currently underway. We present a new Comprehensive Change Detection Method (CCDM) designed as a key component for the development of NLCD 2011 and the research results from two exemplar studies. The CCDM integrates spectral-based change detection algorithms including a Multi-Index Integrated Change Analysis (MIICA) model and a novel change model called Zone, which extracts change information from two Landsat image pairs. The MIICA model is the core module of the change detection strategy and uses four spectral indices (CV, RCVMAX, dNBR, and dNDVI) to obtain the changes that occurred between two image dates. The CCDM also includes a knowledge-based system, which uses critical information on historical and current land cover conditions and trends and the likelihood of land cover change, to combine the changes from MIICA and Zone. For NLCD 2011, the improved and enhanced change products obtained from the CCDM provide critical information on location, magnitude, and direction of potential change areas and serve as a basis for further characterizing land cover changes for the nation. An accuracy assessment from the two study areas show 100% agreement between CCDM mapped no-change class with reference dataset, and 18% and 82% disagreement for the change class for WRS path/row p22r39 and p33r33, respectively. The strength of the CCDM is that the method is simple, easy to operate, widely applicable, and capable of capturing a variety of natural and

Selected Topics in MicroNano-robotics for Biomedical Applications

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

Selected Topics in Micro/Nano-robotics for Biomedical Applications features a system approach and incorporates modern methodologies in autonomous mobile robots for programmable and controllable micro/nano-robots aiming at biomedical applications. The book provides chapters of instructional materials and cutting-edge research results in micro/nanorobotics for biomedical applications. The book presents new sensing technology on nanofibers, new power supply techniques including miniature fuel cells and energy harvesting devices, and manipulation techniques including AFM-based nano-robotic manipulation, robot-aided optical tweezers, and robot-assisted catheter surgery systems. It also contains case studies on using micro/nano-robots in biomedical environments and in biomedicine, as well as a design example to conceptually develop a Vitamin-pill sized robot to enter human’s gastrointestinal tract. Each chapter covers a different topic of the highly interdisciplinary area. Bring together the selected topics into ...

Advanced topics in the arithmetic of elliptic curves

CERN Document Server

Silverman, Joseph H

1994-01-01

In the introduction to the first volume of The Arithmetic of Elliptic Curves (Springer-Verlag, 1986), I observed that "the theory of elliptic curves is rich, varied, and amazingly vast," and as a consequence, "many important topics had to be omitted." I included a brief introduction to ten additional topics as an appendix to the first volume, with the tacit understanding that eventually there might be a second volume containing the details. You are now holding that second volume. it turned out that even those ten topics would not fit Unfortunately, into a single book, so I was forced to make some choices. The following material is covered in this book: I. Elliptic and modular functions for the full modular group. II. Elliptic curves with complex multiplication. III. Elliptic surfaces and specialization theorems. IV. Neron models, Kodaira-Neron classification of special fibers, Tate's algorithm, and Ogg's conductor-discriminant formula. V. Tate's theory of q-curves over p-adic fields. VI. Neron's theory of can...

Statistical evaluation of diagnostic performance topics in ROC analysis

CERN Document Server

Zou, Kelly H; Bandos, Andriy I; Ohno-Machado, Lucila; Rockette, Howard E

2016-01-01

Statistical evaluation of diagnostic performance in general and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis in particular are important for assessing the performance of medical tests and statistical classifiers, as well as for evaluating predictive models or algorithms. This book presents innovative approaches in ROC analysis, which are relevant to a wide variety of applications, including medical imaging, cancer research, epidemiology, and bioinformatics. Statistical Evaluation of Diagnostic Performance: Topics in ROC Analysis covers areas including monotone-transformation techniques in parametric ROC analysis, ROC methods for combined and pooled biomarkers, Bayesian hierarchical transformation models, sequential designs and inferences in the ROC setting, predictive modeling, multireader ROC analysis, and free-response ROC (FROC) methodology. The book is suitable for graduate-level students and researchers in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, biomedical engineering, radiology, medi...

Advanced computational electromagnetic methods and applications

CERN Document Server

Li, Wenxing; Elsherbeni, Atef; Rahmat-Samii, Yahya

2015-01-01

This new resource covers the latest developments in computational electromagnetic methods, with emphasis on cutting-edge applications. This book is designed to extend existing literature to the latest development in computational electromagnetic methods, which are of interest to readers in both academic and industrial areas. The topics include advanced techniques in MoM, FEM and FDTD, spectral domain method, GPU and Phi hardware acceleration, metamaterials, frequency and time domain integral equations, and statistics methods in bio-electromagnetics.

Children's behavioral pain reactions during local anesthetic injection using cotton-roll vibration method compared with routine topical anesthesia: A randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Bagherian, Ali; Sheikhfathollahi, Mahmood

2016-01-01

Topical anesthesia has been widely advocated as an important component of atraumatic administration of intraoral local anesthesia. The aim of this study was to use direct observation of children's behavioral pain reactions during local anesthetic injection using cotton-roll vibration method compared with routine topical anesthesia. Forty-eight children participated in this randomized controlled clinical trial. They received two separate inferior alveolar nerve block or primary maxillary molar infiltration injections on contralateral sides of the jaws by both cotton-roll vibration (a combination of topical anesthesia gel, cotton roll, and vibration for physical distraction) and control (routine topical anesthesia) methods. Behavioral pain reactions of children were measured according to the author-developed face, head, foot, hand, trunk, and cry (FHFHTC) scale, resulting in total scores between 0 and 18. The total scores on the FHFHTC scale ranged between 0-5 and 0-10 in the cotton-roll vibration and control methods, respectively. The mean ± standard deviation values of total scores on FHFHTC scale were lower in the cotton-roll vibration method (1.21 ± 1.38) than in control method (2.44 ± 2.18), and this was statistically significant (P anesthesia in reducing behavioral pain reactions in children during local anesthesia administration.

Knowledge-Based Topic Model for Unsupervised Object Discovery and Localization.

Science.gov (United States)

Niu, Zhenxing; Hua, Gang; Wang, Le; Gao, Xinbo

Unsupervised object discovery and localization is to discover some dominant object classes and localize all of object instances from a given image collection without any supervision. Previous work has attempted to tackle this problem with vanilla topic models, such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). However, in those methods no prior knowledge for the given image collection is exploited to facilitate object discovery. On the other hand, the topic models used in those methods suffer from the topic coherence issue-some inferred topics do not have clear meaning, which limits the final performance of object discovery. In this paper, prior knowledge in terms of the so-called must-links are exploited from Web images on the Internet. Furthermore, a novel knowledge-based topic model, called LDA with mixture of Dirichlet trees, is proposed to incorporate the must-links into topic modeling for object discovery. In particular, to better deal with the polysemy phenomenon of visual words, the must-link is re-defined as that one must-link only constrains one or some topic(s) instead of all topics, which leads to significantly improved topic coherence. Moreover, the must-links are built and grouped with respect to specific object classes, thus the must-links in our approach are semantic-specific , which allows to more efficiently exploit discriminative prior knowledge from Web images. Extensive experiments validated the efficiency of our proposed approach on several data sets. It is shown that our method significantly improves topic coherence and outperforms the unsupervised methods for object discovery and localization. In addition, compared with discriminative methods, the naturally existing object classes in the given image collection can be subtly discovered, which makes our approach well suited for realistic applications of unsupervised object discovery.Unsupervised object discovery and localization is to discover some dominant object classes and localize all of object

AMNT 2014. Key topic: Reactor operation, safety - report. Pt. 3

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bohnstedt, Angelika [Karlsruher Institut fuer Technologie (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (Germany). Programm Nukleare Sicherheitsforschung (NUKLEAR); Mull, Thomas [AREVA GmbH, Erlangen (Germany). Nuclear Fusion, HTR and Transverse Issues (PTDH-G); Starflinger, Joerg [Stuttgart Univ. (Germany). Inst. fuer Kernenergetik und Energiesysteme (IKE)

2015-01-15

Summary report on the following sessions of the Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology held in Frankfurt, 6 to 8 May 2014: - Reactor Operation, Safety: Radiation Protection (Angelika Bohnstedt); - Competence, Innovation, Regulation: Fusion Technology - Optimisation Steps in the ITER Design (Thomas Mull); - Competence, Innovation, Regulation: Education, Expert Knowledge, Knowledge Transfer (Joerg Starflinger). The other Sessions of the Key Topics 'Reactor Operation, Safety', 'Competence, Innovation, Regulation' and 'Fuel, Decommissioning and Disposal' have been covered in atw 10 and 12 (2015) and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Aerodynamics of wind turbines emerging topics

CERN Document Server

Amano, R S

2014-01-01

Focusing on Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines with topics ranging from Fundamental to Application of horizontal axis wind turbines, this book presents advanced topics including: Basic Theory for Wind turbine Blade Aerodynamics, Computational Methods, and Special Structural Reinforcement Technique for Wind Turbine Blades.

Chapter 12: Survey Design and Implementation for Estimating Gross Savings Cross-Cutting Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kurnik, Charles W [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Baumgartner, Robert [Tetra Tech, Madison, WI (United States)

2017-10-05

This chapter presents an overview of best practices for designing and executing survey research to estimate gross energy savings in energy efficiency evaluations. A detailed description of the specific techniques and strategies for designing questions, implementing a survey, and analyzing and reporting the survey procedures and results is beyond the scope of this chapter. So for each topic covered below, readers are encouraged to consult articles and books cited in References, as well as other sources that cover the specific topics in greater depth. This chapter focuses on the use of survey methods to collect data for estimating gross savings from energy efficiency programs.

Topics in Finance Part I--Introduction and Stockholder Wealth Maximization

Science.gov (United States)

Laux, Judy

2010-01-01

The following article represents the first in a series dedicated to presenting students the opportunity to better understand the key theoretical constructs in the introductory financial management course. The current essay offers an introduction to the series and covers the topics of stockholder wealth maximization and its close cousin, agency…

Methods of applied mathematics with a software overview

CERN Document Server

Davis, Jon H

2016-01-01

This textbook, now in its second edition, provides students with a firm grasp of the fundamental notions and techniques of applied mathematics as well as the software skills to implement them. The text emphasizes the computational aspects of problem solving as well as the limitations and implicit assumptions inherent in the formal methods. Readers are also given a sense of the wide variety of problems in which the presented techniques are useful. Broadly organized around the theme of applied Fourier analysis, the treatment covers classical applications in partial differential equations and boundary value problems, and a substantial number of topics associated with Laplace, Fourier, and discrete transform theories. Some advanced topics are explored in the final chapters such as short-time Fourier analysis and geometrically based transforms applicable to boundary value problems. The topics covered are useful in a variety of applied fields such as continuum mechanics, mathematical physics, control theory, and si...

Splitting methods in communication, imaging, science, and engineering

CERN Document Server

Osher, Stanley; Yin, Wotao

2016-01-01

This book is about computational methods based on operator splitting. It consists of twenty-three chapters written by recognized splitting method contributors and practitioners, and covers a vast spectrum of topics and application areas, including computational mechanics, computational physics, image processing, wireless communication, nonlinear optics, and finance. Therefore, the book presents very versatile aspects of splitting methods and their applications, motivating the cross-fertilization of ideas. .

The influence of covering methods on the nutritive value of corn silage for lactating dairy cows

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rafael Camargo do Amaral

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of covering methods on the nutritive value of corn silage and performance of dairy cows. Whole-plant corn was harvested at 340 g/kg of dry matter (DM and ensiled for 135 d in horizontal silos covered with one of the following methods: oxygen barrier film (45-µm thick + white-on-black polyethylene film (200-µm thick over the oxygen barrier film (OB+WB; white-on-black polyethylene film (200-µm thick (WB; black polyethylene film (200-µm thick (B; or recycled black polyethylene film (200-µm thick covered with a layer of 10 cm of sugarcane bagasse (RB+SB. Nutrient composition, fermentation profile, and yeast and mold counts in edible silages were similar across treatments. Silage temperature during the storage period was 24.6, 28.7, 28.4 and 33.1 °C for RB+SB, OB+WB, WB and B, respectively, and the proportion of spoiled silage ranged from 28.7 (for the RB+SB treatment to 74.2 g/kg DM (for the B treatment. Dry matter intake was similar across treatments and averaged 21.9 kg/d. Milk production was higher for cows fed corn silage covered with RB+SB (34.4 kg/d compared with those fed corn silage covered with B (30.4 kg/d, resulting in higher feed efficiency for RB+SB treatment. Silages covered with OB+WB and WB had intermediate values. In vivo digestibility of organic matter was higher for cows fed corn silage covered with RB+SB compared with those fed corn silage covered with WB and B, but were similar to those fed corn silage covered with OB+WB. The utilization of oxygen barrier films and the protection of polyethylene film with sugarcane bagasse are effective strategies to increase the recovery of digestible nutrients and, consequently, to enhance production efficiency of lactating dairy cows.

Gigafida and slWaC: topic comparison

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nataša Logar Berginc

2013-05-01

Full Text Available In the article, the following two issues are analyzed: (a incorporation of texts from the Internet into existing reference corpora and comparison with the existence of web corpora, and (b the latest two corpora of Slovenian language texts: the Gigafida corpus consisting mainly of printed texts and to a lesser extent also web texts, and the slWaC corpus which is entirely compiled from web texts. First, similarities and differences between the two corpora are identified using the topic modelling method, and then the same method is applied to the individual taxonomic categories of the Gigafida corpus. The first part of the analysis showed that the work of reference corpus compilers is currently still incoherent with regard to the incorporation of Internet texts into corpora which should reveal the overall picture of a certain language. In case compilers decide to incorporate web texts, the range of included genres is generally broad. The second part of the analysis showed a significant thematic variation between the Gigafida and slWaC corpora, and pointed out the most typical themes covered by each of the six Gigafida corpus parts.

Correlated Topic Vector for Scene Classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Pengxu; Qin, Fei; Wan, Fang; Zhu, Yi; Jiao, Jianbin; Ye, Qixiang

2017-07-01

Scene images usually involve semantic correlations, particularly when considering large-scale image data sets. This paper proposes a novel generative image representation, correlated topic vector, to model such semantic correlations. Oriented from the correlated topic model, correlated topic vector intends to naturally utilize the correlations among topics, which are seldom considered in the conventional feature encoding, e.g., Fisher vector, but do exist in scene images. It is expected that the involvement of correlations can increase the discriminative capability of the learned generative model and consequently improve the recognition accuracy. Incorporated with the Fisher kernel method, correlated topic vector inherits the advantages of Fisher vector. The contributions to the topics of visual words have been further employed by incorporating the Fisher kernel framework to indicate the differences among scenes. Combined with the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) features and Gibbs sampling solution, correlated topic vector shows great potential when processing large-scale and complex scene image data sets. Experiments on two scene image data sets demonstrate that correlated topic vector improves significantly the deep CNN features, and outperforms existing Fisher kernel-based features.

National forest cover monitoring in mainland South and Southeast Asia: method development and capacity building

Science.gov (United States)

Tyukavina, A.; Potapov, P.; Hansen, M.; Talero, Y.; Turubanova, S.; Pickering, J.; Pickens, A. H.; Quyen, N. H.; Spirovska Kono, M.

2017-12-01

Timely forest monitoring data produced following good practice guidance are required for national reporting on greenhouse gas emissions, national forest resource assessments, and monitoring for REDD+ projects. Remote sensing provides a cost-efficient supplement to national forest inventories, and is often the single viable source of data on forest extent for countries still in the process of establishing field-based inventories. Operational forest monitoring using remotely sensed data requires technical capacity to store, process, and analyze high volumes of satellite imagery. The University of Maryland Global Land Analysis and Discovery (UMD GLAD) lab possesses such technical capacity and is seeking to transfer it to national agencies responsible for forest reporting, national academic institutions, and NGOs. Our projects in South and Southeast Asia include regional forest monitoring in the lower Mekong region in support of the Regional Land Cover Monitoring System (funded by the NASA SERVIR program) and building capacity for forest monitoring in Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand (funded by the SilvaCarbon program). Our forest monitoring approach is a regional scale adaptation of methods developed for the global analysis (Hansen et al. 2013). The methodology to track large-scale clearing of natural forests (e.g. in Brazil and Indonesia) is well established; however, the methods for small-scale disturbance mapping and tree cover rotation assessment are still in development. In Bangladesh our mapping of tree cover change between 2000-2014 revealed that 54% of the tree canopy cover was outside forests, and the majority of canopy changes were smaller than 0.1 ha. Landsat's 30-m resolution was therefore insufficient to monitor changes in tree cover. By using a probability sample of high resolution (circa 1 m) imagery we were able to quantify change in tree canopy cover outside forests (including village woodlots, tree plantations and agroforestry

Land-Use and Land-Cover Mapping Using a Gradable Classification Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keigo Kitada

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Conventional spectral-based classification methods have significant limitations in the digital classification of urban land-use and land-cover classes from high-resolution remotely sensed data because of the lack of consideration given to the spatial properties of images. To recognize the complex distribution of urban features in high-resolution image data, texture information consisting of a group of pixels should be considered. Lacunarity is an index used to characterize different texture appearances. It is often reported that the land-use and land-cover in urban areas can be effectively classified using the lacunarity index with high-resolution images. However, the applicability of the maximum-likelihood approach for hybrid analysis has not been reported. A more effective approach that employs the original spectral data and lacunarity index can be expected to improve the accuracy of the classification. A new classification procedure referred to as “gradable classification method” is proposed in this study. This method improves the classification accuracy in incremental steps. The proposed classification approach integrates several classification maps created from original images and lacunarity maps, which consist of lacnarity values, to create a new classification map. The results of this study confirm the suitability of the gradable classification approach, which produced a higher overall accuracy (68% and kappa coefficient (0.64 than those (65% and 0.60, respectively obtained with the maximum-likelihood approach.

Topical Session on Liabilities identification and long-term management at national level - Topical Session held during the 36. Meeting of the RWMC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

These proceedings cover a topical session that was held at the March 2003 meeting of the Radioactive Waste Management Committee. The topical session focused on liability assessment and management for decommissioning of all types of nuclear installations, including decontamination of historic sites and waste management, as applicable. The presentations covered the current, national situations. The first oral presentation, from Switzerland, set the scene by providing a broad coverage of the relevant issues. The subsequent presentations - five from Member countries and one from the EC - described additional national positions and the evolving EC proposed directives. Each oral presentation was followed by a brief period of Q and As for clarification only. A plenary discussion took place on the ensemble of presentations and a Rapporteur provided a report on points made and lessons learnt. Additionally, written contributions were provided by RWMC delegates from several other countries. These are included in the proceedings as are the papers from the oral sessions, and the Rapporteur's report. These papers are not intended to be exhaustive, but to give an informed glimpse of NEA countries' approaches to liability identification and management in the context of nuclear facilities decommissioning and dismantling

Tautomerism methods and theories

CERN Document Server

Antonov, Liudmil

2013-01-01

Covering the gap between basic textbooks and over-specialized scientific publications, this is the first reference available to describe this interdisciplinary topic for PhD students and scientists starting in the field. The result is an introductory description providing suitable practical examples of the basic methods used to study tautomeric processes, as well as the theories describing the tautomerism and proton transfer phenomena. It also includes different spectroscopic methods for examining tautomerism, such as UV-VIs, time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, and NMR spectrosc

Recent advances in topical anesthesia

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

Topical anesthetics act on the peripheral nerves and reduce the sensation of pain at the site of application. In dentistry, they are used to control local pain caused by needling, placement of orthodontic bands, the vomiting reflex, oral mucositis, and rubber-dam clamp placement. Traditional topical anesthetics contain lidocaine or benzocaine as active ingredients and are used in the form of solutions, creams, gels, and sprays. Eutectic mixtures of local anesthesia cream, a mixture of various topical anesthetics, has been reported to be more potent than other anesthetics. Recently, new products with modified ingredients and application methods have been introduced into the market. These products may be used for mild pain during periodontal treatment, such as scaling. Dentists should be aware that topical anesthetics, although rare, might induce allergic reactions or side effects as a result of an overdose. Topical anesthetics are useful aids during dental treatment, as they reduce dental phobia, especially in children, by mitigating discomfort and pain. PMID:28879311

Topics and topic prominence in two sign languages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kimmelman, V.

2015-01-01

In this paper we describe topic marking in Russian Sign Language (RSL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and discuss whether these languages should be considered topic prominent. The formal markers of topics in RSL are sentence-initial position, a prosodic break following the topic, and

Is cost-covering remuneration fully booked? - Teething problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Niederhaeusern, A.

2009-01-01

In this interview with Michael Kaufmann, director of the SwissEnergy programme, possible strategies for the correct pricing of electricity and measures for the correction of the dissatisfactory situation now prevailing concerning the cost-covering remuneration of power from renewable sources are discussed. The pricing of electricity from various sources and the indirect costs that are at present not met by non-renewable resources are commented on. Further topics covered include suggestions for strategies for relieving the presently blocked financial promotion of renewables, the goals set for the role to be played by renewable energy in Swiss electricity production in 2030 and suggestions for future political action

Methods for the Determination of Chemical Contaminants in Drinking Water. Training Manual.

Science.gov (United States)

Office of Water Program Operations (EPA), Cincinnati, OH. National Training and Operational Technology Center.

This training manual, intended for chemists and technicians with little or no experience in chemical procedures required to monitor drinking water, covers analytical methods for inorganic and organic chemical contaminants listed in the interim primary drinking water regulations. Topics include methods for heavy metals, nitrate, and organic…

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations

CERN Document Server

Guo, Ben-yu

1987-01-01

These Proceedings of the first Chinese Conference on Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations covers topics such as difference methods, finite element methods, spectral methods, splitting methods, parallel algorithm etc., their theoretical foundation and applications to engineering. Numerical methods both for boundary value problems of elliptic equations and for initial-boundary value problems of evolution equations, such as hyperbolic systems and parabolic equations, are involved. The 16 papers of this volume present recent or new unpublished results and provide a good overview of current research being done in this field in China.

Statistical methods for physical science

CERN Document Server

Stanford, John L

1994-01-01

This volume of Methods of Experimental Physics provides an extensive introduction to probability and statistics in many areas of the physical sciences, with an emphasis on the emerging area of spatial statistics. The scope of topics covered is wide-ranging-the text discusses a variety of the most commonly used classical methods and addresses newer methods that are applicable or potentially important. The chapter authors motivate readers with their insightful discussions, augmenting their material withKey Features* Examines basic probability, including coverage of standard distributions, time s

Measuring methods and classification in the muscoskeletal radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Waldt, Simone; Eiber, Matthias; Woertler, Klaus

2011-01-01

The book on measuring methods and classification in the musculoskeletal radiology covers the following topics: legs; hip joint; knee joint; foot; shoulder joint; elbow joint; wrist joint; spinal column; craniocervical transition region and cervical spine; muscular-skeletal carcinomas; osteoporosis; arthrosis; articular cartilage; hemophilia; rheumatic arthritis; muscular injuries; skeleton age.

Problematic topic transitions in dysarthric conversation.

Science.gov (United States)

Bloch, Steven; Saldert, Charlotta; Ferm, Ulrika

2015-01-01

This study examined the nature of topic transition problems associated with acquired progressive dysarthric speech in the everyday conversation of people with motor neurone disease. Using conversation analytic methods, a video collection of five naturally occurring problematic topic transitions was identified, transcribed and analysed. These were extracted from a main collection of over 200 other-initiated repair sequences and a sub-set of 15 problematic topic transition sequences. The sequences were analysed with reference to how the participants both identified and resolved the problems. Analysis revealed that topic transition by people with dysarthria can prove problematic. Conversation partners may find transitions problematic not only because of speech intelligibility but also because of a sequential disjuncture between the dysarthric speech turn and whatever topic has come prior. In addition the treatment of problematic topic transition as a complaint reveals the potential vulnerability of people with dysarthria to judgements of competence. These findings have implications for how dysarthria is conceptualized and how specific actions in conversation, such as topic transition, might be suitable targets for clinical intervention.

Methods for converting continuous shrubland ecosystem component values to thematic National Land Cover Database classes

Science.gov (United States)

Rigge, Matthew B.; Gass, Leila; Homer, Collin G.; Xian, George Z.

2017-10-26

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides thematic land cover and land cover change data at 30-meter spatial resolution for the United States. Although the NLCD is considered to be the leading thematic land cover/land use product and overall classification accuracy across the NLCD is high, performance and consistency in the vast shrub and grasslands of the Western United States is lower than desired. To address these issues and fulfill the needs of stakeholders requiring more accurate rangeland data, the USGS has developed a method to quantify these areas in terms of the continuous cover of several cover components. These components include the cover of shrub, sagebrush (Artemisia spp), big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata spp.), herbaceous, annual herbaceous, litter, and bare ground, and shrub and sagebrush height. To produce maps of component cover, we collected field data that were then associated with spectral values in WorldView-2 and Landsat imagery using regression tree models. The current report outlines the procedures and results of converting these continuous cover components to three thematic NLCD classes: barren, shrubland, and grassland. To accomplish this, we developed a series of indices and conditional models using continuous cover of shrub, bare ground, herbaceous, and litter as inputs. The continuous cover data are currently available for two large regions in the Western United States. Accuracy of the “cross-walked” product was assessed relative to that of NLCD 2011 at independent validation points (n=787) across these two regions. Overall thematic accuracy of the “cross-walked” product was 0.70, compared to 0.63 for NLCD 2011. The kappa value was considerably higher for the “cross-walked” product at 0.41 compared to 0.28 for NLCD 2011. Accuracy was also evaluated relative to the values of training points (n=75,000) used in the development of the continuous cover components. Again, the “cross-walked” product outperformed NLCD

Fractional Microneedling: A Novel Method for Enhancement of Topical Anesthesia Before Skin Aesthetic Procedures.

Science.gov (United States)

El-Fakahany, Hasan; Medhat, Walid; Abdallah, Fahd; Abdel-Raouf, Hamza; Abdelhakeem, Mohammed

2016-01-01

Skin microneedling or fractional microneedle therapy is a recent approach used for skin rejuvenation or to enhance transdermal delivery of topical medications. The authors evaluated the efficacy of skin microneedling, using an automated device, to enhance the numbing effect of topical anesthesia, used before minimally invasive aesthetic approaches. Fifteen patients, looking for treatment of atrophic acne scars, were subjected to randomized split-face study comparing automated fractional skin microneedling (0.5 mm depth) followed by application of topical anesthetic cream (Lidocaine 2.5% + Prilocaine 2.5%) on one side of face, with topical anesthesia alone on the other side, followed by full face fractional microneedling treatment for postacne scars (2.5 mm depth). The treated sides (fractional needling + topical anesthesia) had significantly lower pain scores when compared with the nontreated sides (topical anesthesia alone). The scores of pain sensation, during the whole procedure, were statistically significantly (p aesthetic procedures can be enhanced with fractional microneedling pretreatment.

#Healthy Selfies: Exploration of Health Topics on Instagram.

Science.gov (United States)

Muralidhara, Sachin; Paul, Michael J

2018-06-29

Social media provides a complementary source of information for public health surveillance. The dominate data source for this type of monitoring is the microblogging platform Twitter, which is convenient due to the free availability of public data. Less is known about the utility of other social media platforms, despite their popularity. This work aims to characterize the health topics that are prominently discussed in the image-sharing platform Instagram, as a step toward understanding how this data might be used for public health research. The study uses a topic modeling approach to discover topics in a dataset of 96,426 Instagram posts containing hashtags related to health. We use a polylingual topic model, initially developed for datasets in different natural languages, to model different modalities of data: hashtags, caption words, and image tags automatically extracted using a computer vision tool. We identified 47 health-related topics in the data (kappa=.77), covering ten broad categories: acute illness, alternative medicine, chronic illness and pain, diet, exercise, health care & medicine, mental health, musculoskeletal health and dermatology, sleep, and substance use. The most prevalent topics were related to diet (8,293/96,426; 8.6% of posts) and exercise (7,328/96,426; 7.6% of posts). A large and diverse set of health topics are discussed in Instagram. The extracted image tags were generally too coarse and noisy to be used for identifying posts but were in some cases accurate for identifying images relevant to studying diet and substance use. Instagram shows potential as a source of public health information, though limitations in data collection and metadata availability may limit its use in comparison to platforms like Twitter. ©Sachin Muralidhara, Michael J. Paul. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 29.06.2018.

77 FR 7080 - Changes To Implement Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patents

Science.gov (United States)

2012-02-10

... covered business method patent review will be final and nonappealable (see 35 U.S.C. 324(e)). Section 18(a...] discloses the invention more than 1 year before the date of the application for patent in the United States... effective date set forth in section 3(n)(1)) if the disclosure had been made by another before the invention...

Can Earth Materials BE Adequately Covered in a - or Two-Semester Course?

Science.gov (United States)

Hefferan, K. P.; O'Brien, J.

2007-12-01

Traditional geology programs offer courses in mineralogy, optical mineralogy, igneous petrology, metamorphic petrology, sedimentology and economic geology. At many universities this suite of mineralogy/petrology courses has been supplanted by a one-semester or two-semester Earth Materials course. This interactive poster poses five questions to faculty and students related to the means by which Earth Materials can be delivered: 1) Available online syllabi demonstrate a wide variation in the topics addressed in Earth Materials courses; is there a standard core of key topics that must be covered and in what level of detail? 2) Can a one-semester or two- semester Earth Materials course adequately cover these topics? 3) Excellent textbooks exist in both mineralogy and in petrology; what textbooks, if any, adequately encompass Earth Materials? 4) How has the online environment changed the way in which we use textbooks in the classroom? 5) Given the evolution of geology programs, higher education and the global economy in the past twenty years, what additional changes can be anticipated with respect to delivery and demand of Earth Materials topics? Answers-- or at least related discussions-- to these questions are encouraged via verbal dialogue among participants and/or by comments written on the poster. Our goal is to solicit faculty, student and industry feedback to create a textbook, curricula and online materials that support an Earth Materials course.

Satellite DNA: An Evolving Topic.

Science.gov (United States)

Garrido-Ramos, Manuel A

2017-09-18

Satellite DNA represents one of the most fascinating parts of the repetitive fraction of the eukaryotic genome. Since the discovery of highly repetitive tandem DNA in the 1960s, a lot of literature has extensively covered various topics related to the structure, organization, function, and evolution of such sequences. Today, with the advent of genomic tools, the study of satellite DNA has regained a great interest. Thus, Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), together with high-throughput in silico analysis of the information contained in NGS reads, has revolutionized the analysis of the repetitive fraction of the eukaryotic genomes. The whole of the historical and current approaches to the topic gives us a broad view of the function and evolution of satellite DNA and its role in chromosomal evolution. Currently, we have extensive information on the molecular, chromosomal, biological, and population factors that affect the evolutionary fate of satellite DNA, knowledge that gives rise to a series of hypotheses that get on well with each other about the origin, spreading, and evolution of satellite DNA. In this paper, I review these hypotheses from a methodological, conceptual, and historical perspective and frame them in the context of chromosomal organization and evolution.

Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit Product

Science.gov (United States)

The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium has supported the development of two national digital land cover products: the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) 1992 and National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001. Substantial differences in imagery, legends, and methods betwe...

Detecting Hotspot Information Using Multi-Attribute Based Topic Model.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Wang

Full Text Available Microblogging as a kind of social network has become more and more important in our daily lives. Enormous amounts of information are produced and shared on a daily basis. Detecting hot topics in the mountains of information can help people get to the essential information more quickly. However, due to short and sparse features, a large number of meaningless tweets and other characteristics of microblogs, traditional topic detection methods are often ineffective in detecting hot topics. In this paper, we propose a new topic model named multi-attribute latent dirichlet allocation (MA-LDA, in which the time and hashtag attributes of microblogs are incorporated into LDA model. By introducing time attribute, MA-LDA model can decide whether a word should appear in hot topics or not. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional LDA model, applying hashtag attribute in MA-LDA model gives the core words an artificially high ranking in results meaning the expressiveness of outcomes can be improved. Empirical evaluations on real data sets demonstrate that our method is able to detect hot topics more accurately and efficiently compared with several baselines. Our method provides strong evidence of the importance of the temporal factor in extracting hot topics.

Detecting Hotspot Information Using Multi-Attribute Based Topic Model

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jing; Li, Li; Tan, Feng; Zhu, Ying; Feng, Weisi

2015-01-01

Microblogging as a kind of social network has become more and more important in our daily lives. Enormous amounts of information are produced and shared on a daily basis. Detecting hot topics in the mountains of information can help people get to the essential information more quickly. However, due to short and sparse features, a large number of meaningless tweets and other characteristics of microblogs, traditional topic detection methods are often ineffective in detecting hot topics. In this paper, we propose a new topic model named multi-attribute latent dirichlet allocation (MA-LDA), in which the time and hashtag attributes of microblogs are incorporated into LDA model. By introducing time attribute, MA-LDA model can decide whether a word should appear in hot topics or not. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional LDA model, applying hashtag attribute in MA-LDA model gives the core words an artificially high ranking in results meaning the expressiveness of outcomes can be improved. Empirical evaluations on real data sets demonstrate that our method is able to detect hot topics more accurately and efficiently compared with several baselines. Our method provides strong evidence of the importance of the temporal factor in extracting hot topics. PMID:26496635

Visual communication on the covers of the journals Vijenac, Kolo and Zarez (1999 – 2011

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Josipa Selthofer

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of the paper is to analyse and compare graphic elements of visual communication on selected journal covers. The research was conducted using the covers of the journals Zarez, Vijenac and Kolo published from 1999 to 2011. The journal sample was selected based on the availability of periodicals, their topic and their cultural and social relevance. The research showed that visual communication on journal covers varies depending on the identity of the journal. Images are the key element in creating the message on the cover, they determine the way a journal communicates, giving it style, tone, and depth. Although thematically very similar, the journals we compared speak a different visual language. The main characteristic of Zarez is the daring and ironic visual communication that criticizes social events. In Vijenac, and in Kolo in particular, a more passive method of communication is used, which merely reflects the society and culture in which it is situated and about which it testifies. Focused on comments about general social and cultural events, without any real involvement, Kolo lacks the key element of visual communication that intrigues and directs readers' attention to the journal.

Bending behaviors of fully covered biodegradable polydioxanone biliary stent for human body by finite element method.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yanhui; Zhu, Guoqing; Yang, Huazhe; Wang, Conger; Zhang, Peihua; Han, Guangting

2018-01-01

This paper presents a study of the bending flexibility of fully covered biodegradable polydioxanone biliary stents (FCBPBs) developed for human body. To investigate the relationship between the bending load and structure parameter (monofilament diameter and braid-pin number), biodegradable polydioxanone biliary stents derived from braiding method were covered with membrane prepared via electrospinning method, and nine FCBPBSs were then obtained for bending test to evaluate the bending flexibility. In addition, by the finite element method, nine numerical models based on actual biliary stent were established and the bending load was calculated through the finite element method. Results demonstrate that the simulation and experimental results are in good agreement with each other, indicating that the simulation results can be provided a useful reference to the investigation of biliary stents. Furthermore, the stress distribution on FCBPBSs was studied, and the plastic dissipation analysis and plastic strain of FCBPBSs were obtained via the bending simulation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An overview of topic modeling and its current applications in bioinformatics.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Lin; Tang, Lin; Dong, Wen; Yao, Shaowen; Zhou, Wei

2016-01-01

With the rapid accumulation of biological datasets, machine learning methods designed to automate data analysis are urgently needed. In recent years, so-called topic models that originated from the field of natural language processing have been receiving much attention in bioinformatics because of their interpretability. Our aim was to review the application and development of topic models for bioinformatics. This paper starts with the description of a topic model, with a focus on the understanding of topic modeling. A general outline is provided on how to build an application in a topic model and how to develop a topic model. Meanwhile, the literature on application of topic models to biological data was searched and analyzed in depth. According to the types of models and the analogy between the concept of document-topic-word and a biological object (as well as the tasks of a topic model), we categorized the related studies and provided an outlook on the use of topic models for the development of bioinformatics applications. Topic modeling is a useful method (in contrast to the traditional means of data reduction in bioinformatics) and enhances researchers' ability to interpret biological information. Nevertheless, due to the lack of topic models optimized for specific biological data, the studies on topic modeling in biological data still have a long and challenging road ahead. We believe that topic models are a promising method for various applications in bioinformatics research.

Preface to Special Topic: Marine Renewable Energy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pinto, F. T.; Iglesias, G.; Santos, P. R.; Deng, Zhiqun

2015-12-30

Marine renewable energy (MRE) is generates from waves, currents, tides, and thermal resources in the ocean. MRE has been identified as a potential commercial-scale source of renewable energy. This special topic presents a compilation of works selected from the 3rd IAHR Europe Congress, held in Porto, Portugal, in 2014. It covers different subjects relevant to MRE, including resource assessment, marine energy sector policies, energy source comparisons based on levelized cost, proof-of-concept and new-technology development for wave and tidal energy exploitation, and assessment of possible inference between wave energy converters (WEC).

Distance sampling methods and applications

CERN Document Server

Buckland, S T; Marques, T A; Oedekoven, C S

2015-01-01

In this book, the authors cover the basic methods and advances within distance sampling that are most valuable to practitioners and in ecology more broadly. This is the fourth book dedicated to distance sampling. In the decade since the last book published, there have been a number of new developments. The intervening years have also shown which advances are of most use. This self-contained book covers topics from the previous publications, while also including recent developments in method, software and application. Distance sampling refers to a suite of methods, including line and point transect sampling, in which animal density or abundance is estimated from a sample of distances to detected individuals. The book illustrates these methods through case studies; data sets and computer code are supplied to readers through the book’s accompanying website.  Some of the case studies use the software Distance, while others use R code. The book is in three parts.  The first part addresses basic methods, the ...

Documenting and predicting topic changes in Computers in Biology and Medicine: A bibliometric keyword analysis from 1990 to 2017

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oliver Faust

Full Text Available The Computers in Biology and Medicine (CBM journal promotes the use of computing machinery in the fields of bioscience and medicine. Since the first volume in 1970, the importance of computers in these fields has grown dramatically, this is evident in the diversification of topics and an increase in the publication rate. In this study, we quantify both change and diversification of topics covered in. This is done by analysing the author supplied keywords, since they were electronically captured in 1990. The analysis starts by selecting 40 keywords, related to Medical (M (7, Data (D (10, Feature (F (17 and (AI (6 methods. Automated keyword clustering shows the statistical connection between the selected keywords. We found that the three most popular topics in CBM are: Support Vector Machine (SVM, Electroencephalography (EEG and IMAGE PROCESSING. In a separate analysis step, we bagged the selected keywords into sequential one year time slices and calculated the normalized appearance. The results were visualised with graphs that indicate the CBM topic changes. These graphs show that there was a transition from Artificial Neural Network (ANN to SVM. In 2006 SVM replaced ANN as the most important AI algorithm. Our investigation helps the editorial board to manage and embrace topic change. Furthermore, our analysis is interesting for the general reader, as the results can help them to adjust their research directions. Keywords: Research trends, Topic analysis, Topic detection and tracking, Text mining, Computers in biology and medicine

Using hot lab to increase pre-service physics teacher’s critical thinking skills related to the topic of RLC circuit

Science.gov (United States)

Malik, A.; Setiawan, A.; Suhandi, A.; Permanasari, A.; Samsudin, A.; Safitri, D.; Lisdiani, S. A. S.; Sapriadil, S.; Hermita, N.

2018-05-01

This research purposes to explore the used of Higher Order Thinking Laboratory (HOT-Lab) in enhancing the critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers related to the topic of Resistors, Inductors, Capacitor (RLC circuit). This study utilised a quasi-experiment method with Pretest-Posttest Control Group design. The sample of the study was 60 students that were divided into two groups covering in experiment and control group, consists of 30 students. The instrument for measuring critical thinking skills is essay test. Data has been analyzed using normalized gain average, effect size, and t-test. The results show that students’ critical thinking skills using the HOT Lab are higher than the verification lab. Using HOT-lab was implemented in the form of activity in the laboratory can improve high-order thinking skills. Hence, it was concluded that the use of HOT Lab had a greater impact on improving students’ critical thinking skills on RLC topic. Finally, HOT Lab can be used for other physics topics.

Antibacterial drugs in the form of sprays for the topical treatment of pyodermas and dermatoses complicated with a secondary infection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

YE. V. Matushevskaya

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The article covers issues related to the application of topical antibacterial drugs for the treatment of pyodermic skin diseases. The author describes mechanisms of action and advantages of the topical form of antibiotics and GCS for the topical treatment of pyodermas. The article substantiates indications for the administration of topical GCS drugs in a combination with antibacterial drugs. The efficacy and safety of antibacterial and combination topical drugs such as Neomycin, Oxycort and Polcortolon TC in the form sprays for the treatment of pyodermas and complicated forms of chronic dermatosis.

Learning topic models by belief propagation.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Jia; Cheung, William K; Liu, Jiming

2013-05-01

Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is an important hierarchical Bayesian model for probabilistic topic modeling, which attracts worldwide interest and touches on many important applications in text mining, computer vision and computational biology. This paper represents the collapsed LDA as a factor graph, which enables the classic loopy belief propagation (BP) algorithm for approximate inference and parameter estimation. Although two commonly used approximate inference methods, such as variational Bayes (VB) and collapsed Gibbs sampling (GS), have gained great success in learning LDA, the proposed BP is competitive in both speed and accuracy, as validated by encouraging experimental results on four large-scale document datasets. Furthermore, the BP algorithm has the potential to become a generic scheme for learning variants of LDA-based topic models in the collapsed space. To this end, we show how to learn two typical variants of LDA-based topic models, such as author-topic models (ATM) and relational topic models (RTM), using BP based on the factor graph representations.

A Topic Analysis of ISECON Conference Proceedings from 1982 through 2014

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Jon; Athey, Susan; Plotnicki, Jon; Barnes, Jay

2016-01-01

The authors note a distinct shift in topics covered in curricula as well as in conference presentations. This research was undertaken to get a better understanding of what these shifts have been, and determine their magnitude over time. Since ISECON has published its conference proceedings in digital format since 1982, this was a logical source of…

An analysis of initial acquisition and maintenance of sight words following picture matching and copy cover, and compare teaching methods.

OpenAIRE

Conley, Colleen M; Derby, K Mark; Roberts-Gwinn, Michelle; Weber, Kimberly P; McLaughlin, T E

2004-01-01

This study compared the copy, cover, and compare method to a picture-word matching method for teaching sight word recognition. Participants were 5 kindergarten students with less than preprimer sight word vocabularies who were enrolled in a public school in the Pacific Northwest. A multielement design was used to evaluate the effects of the two interventions. Outcomes suggested that sight words taught using the copy, cover, and compare method resulted in better maintenance of word recognition...

Patched based methods for adaptive mesh refinement solutions of partial differential equations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Saltzman, J.

1997-09-02

This manuscript contains the lecture notes for a course taught from July 7th through July 11th at the 1997 Numerical Analysis Summer School sponsored by C.E.A., I.N.R.I.A., and E.D.F. The subject area was chosen to support the general theme of that year`s school which is ``Multiscale Methods and Wavelets in Numerical Simulation.`` The first topic covered in these notes is a description of the problem domain. This coverage is limited to classical PDEs with a heavier emphasis on hyperbolic systems and constrained hyperbolic systems. The next topic is difference schemes. These schemes are the foundation for the adaptive methods. After the background material is covered, attention is focused on a simple patched based adaptive algorithm and its associated data structures for square grids and hyperbolic conservation laws. Embellishments include curvilinear meshes, embedded boundary and overset meshes. Next, several strategies for parallel implementations are examined. The remainder of the notes contains descriptions of elliptic solutions on the mesh hierarchy, elliptically constrained flow solution methods and elliptically constrained flow solution methods with diffusion.

A Data-Based Approach to Discovering Multi-Topic Influential Leaders.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xing Tang

Full Text Available Recently, increasing numbers of users have adopted microblogging services as their main information source. However, most of them find themselves drowning in the millions of posts produced by other users every day. To cope with this, identifying a set of the most influential people is paramount. Moreover, finding a set of related influential users to expand the coverage of one particular topic is required in real world scenarios. Most of the existing algorithms in this area focus on topology-related methods such as PageRank. These methods mine link structures to find the expected influential rank of users. However, because they ignore the interaction data, these methods turn out to be less effective in social networks. In reality, a variety of topics exist within the information diffusing through the network. Because they have different interests, users play different roles in the diffusion of information related to different topics. As a result, distinguishing influential leaders according to different topics is also worthy of research. In this paper, we propose a multi-topic influence diffusion model (MTID based on traces acquired from historic information. We decompose the influential scores of users into two parts: the direct influence determined by information propagation along the link structure and indirect influence that extends beyond the restrictions of direct follower relationships. To model the network from a multi-topical viewpoint, we introduce topic pools, each of which represents a particular topic information source. Then, we extract the topic distributions from the traces of tweets, determining the influence propagation probability and content generation probability. In the network, we adopt multiple ground nodes representing topic pools to connect every user through bidirectional links. Based on this multi-topical view of the network, we further introduce the topic-dependent rank (TD-Rank algorithm to identify the multi-topic

A Data-Based Approach to Discovering Multi-Topic Influential Leaders.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Xing; Miao, Qiguang; Yu, Shangshang; Quan, Yining

2016-01-01

Recently, increasing numbers of users have adopted microblogging services as their main information source. However, most of them find themselves drowning in the millions of posts produced by other users every day. To cope with this, identifying a set of the most influential people is paramount. Moreover, finding a set of related influential users to expand the coverage of one particular topic is required in real world scenarios. Most of the existing algorithms in this area focus on topology-related methods such as PageRank. These methods mine link structures to find the expected influential rank of users. However, because they ignore the interaction data, these methods turn out to be less effective in social networks. In reality, a variety of topics exist within the information diffusing through the network. Because they have different interests, users play different roles in the diffusion of information related to different topics. As a result, distinguishing influential leaders according to different topics is also worthy of research. In this paper, we propose a multi-topic influence diffusion model (MTID) based on traces acquired from historic information. We decompose the influential scores of users into two parts: the direct influence determined by information propagation along the link structure and indirect influence that extends beyond the restrictions of direct follower relationships. To model the network from a multi-topical viewpoint, we introduce topic pools, each of which represents a particular topic information source. Then, we extract the topic distributions from the traces of tweets, determining the influence propagation probability and content generation probability. In the network, we adopt multiple ground nodes representing topic pools to connect every user through bidirectional links. Based on this multi-topical view of the network, we further introduce the topic-dependent rank (TD-Rank) algorithm to identify the multi-topic influential users

Methods of Evaluating Thermodynamic Properties of Landscape Cover Using Multispectral Reflected Radiation Measurements by the Landsat Satellite

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuriy Puzachenko

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses methods of evaluating thermodynamic properties of landscape cover based on multi-spectral measurements by the Landsat satellites. Authors demonstrate how these methods could be used for studying functionality of landscapes and for spatial interpolation of Flux NET system measurements.

Multiple Shooting and Time Domain Decomposition Methods

CERN Document Server

Geiger, Michael; Körkel, Stefan; Rannacher, Rolf

2015-01-01

This book offers a comprehensive collection of the most advanced numerical techniques for the efficient and effective solution of simulation and optimization problems governed by systems of time-dependent differential equations. The contributions present various approaches to time domain decomposition, focusing on multiple shooting and parareal algorithms.  The range of topics covers theoretical analysis of the methods, as well as their algorithmic formulation and guidelines for practical implementation. Selected examples show that the discussed approaches are mandatory for the solution of challenging practical problems. The practicability and efficiency of the presented methods is illustrated by several case studies from fluid dynamics, data compression, image processing and computational biology, giving rise to possible new research topics.  This volume, resulting from the workshop Multiple Shooting and Time Domain Decomposition Methods, held in Heidelberg in May 2013, will be of great interest to applied...

Analyzing the history of Cognition using Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen Priva, Uriel; Austerweil, Joseph L

2015-02-01

Very few articles have analyzed how cognitive science as a field has changed over the last six decades. We explore how Cognition changed over the last four decades using Topic Models. Topic Models assume that every word in every document is generated by one of a limited number of topics. Words that are likely to co-occur are likely to be generated by a single topic. We find a number of significant historical trends: the rise of moral cognition, eyetracking methods, and action, the fall of sentence processing, and the stability of development. We introduce the notion of framing topics, which frame content, rather than present the content itself. These framing topics suggest that over time Cognition turned from abstract theorizing to more experimental approaches. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Image Re-Ranking Based on Topic Diversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Qian, Xueming; Lu, Dan; Wang, Yaxiong; Zhu, Li; Tang, Yuan Yan; Wang, Meng

2017-08-01

Social media sharing Websites allow users to annotate images with free tags, which significantly contribute to the development of the web image retrieval. Tag-based image search is an important method to find images shared by users in social networks. However, how to make the top ranked result relevant and with diversity is challenging. In this paper, we propose a topic diverse ranking approach for tag-based image retrieval with the consideration of promoting the topic coverage performance. First, we construct a tag graph based on the similarity between each tag. Then, the community detection method is conducted to mine the topic community of each tag. After that, inter-community and intra-community ranking are introduced to obtain the final retrieved results. In the inter-community ranking process, an adaptive random walk model is employed to rank the community based on the multi-information of each topic community. Besides, we build an inverted index structure for images to accelerate the searching process. Experimental results on Flickr data set and NUS-Wide data sets show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Method of moments in electromagnetics

CERN Document Server

Gibson, Walton C

2007-01-01

Responding to the need for a clear, up-to-date introduction to the field, The Method of Moments in Electromagnetics explores surface integral equations in electromagnetics and presents their numerical solution using the method of moments (MOM) technique. It provides the numerical implementation aspects at a nuts-and-bolts level while discussing integral equations and electromagnetic theory at a higher level. The author covers a range of topics in this area, from the initial underpinnings of the MOM to its current applications. He first reviews the frequency-domain electromagnetic theory and t

Learning Methods for Dynamic Topic Modeling in Automated Behavior Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Isupova, Olga; Kuzin, Danil; Mihaylova, Lyudmila

2017-09-27

Semisupervised and unsupervised systems provide operators with invaluable support and can tremendously reduce the operators' load. In the light of the necessity to process large volumes of video data and provide autonomous decisions, this paper proposes new learning algorithms for activity analysis in video. The activities and behaviors are described by a dynamic topic model. Two novel learning algorithms based on the expectation maximization approach and variational Bayes inference are proposed. Theoretical derivations of the posterior estimates of model parameters are given. The designed learning algorithms are compared with the Gibbs sampling inference scheme introduced earlier in the literature. A detailed comparison of the learning algorithms is presented on real video data. We also propose an anomaly localization procedure, elegantly embedded in the topic modeling framework. It is shown that the developed learning algorithms can achieve 95% success rate. The proposed framework can be applied to a number of areas, including transportation systems, security, and surveillance.

Evaluation and parameterization of ATCOR3 topographic correction method for forest cover mapping in mountain areas

Science.gov (United States)

Balthazar, Vincent; Vanacker, Veerle; Lambin, Eric F.

2012-08-01

A topographic correction of optical remote sensing data is necessary to improve the quality of quantitative forest cover change analyses in mountainous terrain. The implementation of semi-empirical correction methods requires the calibration of model parameters that are empirically defined. This study develops a method to improve the performance of topographic corrections for forest cover change detection in mountainous terrain through an iterative tuning method of model parameters based on a systematic evaluation of the performance of the correction. The latter was based on: (i) the general matching of reflectances between sunlit and shaded slopes and (ii) the occurrence of abnormal reflectance values, qualified as statistical outliers, in very low illuminated areas. The method was tested on Landsat ETM+ data for rough (Ecuadorian Andes) and very rough mountainous terrain (Bhutan Himalayas). Compared to a reference level (no topographic correction), the ATCOR3 semi-empirical correction method resulted in a considerable reduction of dissimilarities between reflectance values of forested sites in different topographic orientations. Our results indicate that optimal parameter combinations are depending on the site, sun elevation and azimuth and spectral conditions. We demonstrate that the results of relatively simple topographic correction methods can be greatly improved through a feedback loop between parameter tuning and evaluation of the performance of the correction model.

Topic modeling for cluster analysis of large biological and medical datasets.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Weizhong; Zou, Wen; Chen, James J

2014-01-01

The big data moniker is nowhere better deserved than to describe the ever-increasing prodigiousness and complexity of biological and medical datasets. New methods are needed to generate and test hypotheses, foster biological interpretation, and build validated predictors. Although multivariate techniques such as cluster analysis may allow researchers to identify groups, or clusters, of related variables, the accuracies and effectiveness of traditional clustering methods diminish for large and hyper dimensional datasets. Topic modeling is an active research field in machine learning and has been mainly used as an analytical tool to structure large textual corpora for data mining. Its ability to reduce high dimensionality to a small number of latent variables makes it suitable as a means for clustering or overcoming clustering difficulties in large biological and medical datasets. In this study, three topic model-derived clustering methods, highest probable topic assignment, feature selection and feature extraction, are proposed and tested on the cluster analysis of three large datasets: Salmonella pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) dataset, lung cancer dataset, and breast cancer dataset, which represent various types of large biological or medical datasets. All three various methods are shown to improve the efficacy/effectiveness of clustering results on the three datasets in comparison to traditional methods. A preferable cluster analysis method emerged for each of the three datasets on the basis of replicating known biological truths. Topic modeling could be advantageously applied to the large datasets of biological or medical research. The three proposed topic model-derived clustering methods, highest probable topic assignment, feature selection and feature extraction, yield clustering improvements for the three different data types. Clusters more efficaciously represent truthful groupings and subgroupings in the data than traditional methods, suggesting

An analysis of initial acquisition and maintenance of sight words following picture matching and copy cover, and compare teaching methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Conley, Colleen M; Derby, K Mark; Roberts-Gwinn, Michelle; Weber, Kimberly P; McLaughlin, T E

2004-01-01

This study compared the copy, cover, and compare method to a picture-word matching method for teaching sight word recognition. Participants were 5 kindergarten students with less than preprimer sight word vocabularies who were enrolled in a public school in the Pacific Northwest. A multielement design was used to evaluate the effects of the two interventions. Outcomes suggested that sight words taught using the copy, cover, and compare method resulted in better maintenance of word recognition when compared to the picture-matching intervention. Benefits to students and the practicality of employing the word-level teaching methods are discussed.

Task-Driven Comparison of Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, Eric; Gleicher, Michael

2016-01-01

Topic modeling, a method of statistically extracting thematic content from a large collection of texts, is used for a wide variety of tasks within text analysis. Though there are a growing number of tools and techniques for exploring single models, comparisons between models are generally reduced to a small set of numerical metrics. These metrics may or may not reflect a model's performance on the analyst's intended task, and can therefore be insufficient to diagnose what causes differences between models. In this paper, we explore task-centric topic model comparison, considering how we can both provide detail for a more nuanced understanding of differences and address the wealth of tasks for which topic models are used. We derive comparison tasks from single-model uses of topic models, which predominantly fall into the categories of understanding topics, understanding similarity, and understanding change. Finally, we provide several visualization techniques that facilitate these tasks, including buddy plots, which combine color and position encodings to allow analysts to readily view changes in document similarity.

Method for covering a spme fibre with carbon nanotubes and resulting spme fibre

OpenAIRE

Bertrán, Enric; Jover Comas, Eric; García Céspedes, Jordi; Bayona Termens, Josep María

2010-01-01

[EN] The invention relates to a method for covering solid phase microextraction (SPME) fibres with carbon nanotubes (CNT), comprising the following operations: (i) depositing a layer of a metal material on the SPME fibre; (ii) applying a heat treatment in order to form catalytic metal nanoparticles in a reducing atmosphere; and (iii) applying carbon using chemical deposition techniques, thereby forming CNT on top ofthe metal nanoparticles. The invention also relates to a fibre obtain...

Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992–2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product

Science.gov (United States)

Fry, J.A.; Coan, Michael; Homer, Collin G.; Meyer, Debra K.; Wickham, J.D.

2009-01-01

The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium has supported the development of two national digital land cover products: the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) 1992 and National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001. Substantial differences in imagery, legends, and methods between these two land cover products must be overcome in order to support direct comparison. The NLCD 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product was developed to provide more accurate and useful land cover change data than would be possible by direct comparison of NLCD 1992 and NLCD 2001. For the change analysis method to be both national in scale and timely, implementation required production across many Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) path/rows simultaneously. To meet these requirements, a hybrid change analysis process was developed to incorporate both post-classification comparison and specialized ratio differencing change analysis techniques. At a resolution of 30 meters, the completed NLCD 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product contains unchanged pixels from the NLCD 2001 land cover dataset that have been cross-walked to a modified Anderson Level I class code, and changed pixels labeled with a 'from-to' class code. Analysis of the results for the conterminous United States indicated that about 3 percent of the land cover dataset changed between 1992 and 2001.

Topical tags vs non-topical tags : Towards a bipartite classification?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Basile, Valerio; Peroni, Silvio; Tamburini, Fabio; Vitali, Fabio

2015-01-01

In this paper we investigate whether it is possible to create a computational approach that allows us to distinguish topical tags (i.e. talking about the topic of a resource) and non-topical tags (i.e. describing aspects of a resource that are not related to its topic) in folksonomies, in a way that

Weed control in organic rice using plastic mulch and water seeding methods in addition to cover crops

Science.gov (United States)

Weeds are a major yield limiting factor in organic rice farming and are more problematic than in conventional production systems. Water seeding is a common method of reducing weed pressure in rice fields as many weeds connot tolerate flooded field conditions. The use of cover crops is another method...

Aerospace methods for the study of water resources and their pollution

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kupriianov, V V; Usachev, V F [eds.

1981-01-01

Papers are presented on such topics as the use of satellite remote sensing data to study meltage runoff in mountain basins, the investigation of the dynamics of snow cover, the use of satellite multispectral photography to study snow meltage fronts, and the evaluation of the pollution of snow cover in industrial regions on the basis of remote sensing data. Also considered are the determination of the albedo and brightness coefficients of snow cover, the use of remote sensing to study subsurface water and tectonic structures, the investigation of the thermal pollution of rivers on the basis of infrared aerial photography, remote sensing methods for monitoring water quality, and microwave sensing methods for the investigation of water resources and their pollution.

Statistical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations

CERN Document Server

Kessler, Mathieu; Sorensen, Michael

2012-01-01

The seventh volume in the SemStat series, Statistical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations presents current research trends and recent developments in statistical methods for stochastic differential equations. Written to be accessible to both new students and seasoned researchers, each self-contained chapter starts with introductions to the topic at hand and builds gradually towards discussing recent research. The book covers Wiener-driven equations as well as stochastic differential equations with jumps, including continuous-time ARMA processes and COGARCH processes. It presents a sp

Skin graft fixation in severe burns: use of topical negative pressure.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamolz, L P; Lumenta, D B; Parvizi, D; Wiedner, M; Justich, I; Keck, M; Pfurtscheller, K; Schintler, M

2014-09-30

Over the last 50 years, the evolution of burn care has led to a significant decrease in mortality. The biggest impact on survival has been the change in the approach to burn surgery. Early excision and grafting has become a standard of care for the majority of patients with deep burns; the survival of a given patient suffering from major burns is invariably linked to the take rate and survival of skin grafts. The application of topical negative pressure (TNP) therapy devices has demonstrated improved graft take in comparison to conventional dressing methods alone. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of TNP therapy on skin graft fixation in large burns. In all patients, we applied TNP dressings covering a %TBSA of >25. The following parameters were recorded and documented using BurnCase 3D: age, gender, %TBSA, burn depth, hospital length-of-stay, Baux score, survival, as well as duration and incidence of TNP dressings. After a burn depth adapted wound debridement, coverage was simultaneously performed using split-thickness skin grafts, which were fixed with staples and covered with fatty gauzes and TNP foam. The TNP foam was again fixed with staples to prevent displacement and finally covered with the supplied transparent adhesive film. A continuous subatmospheric pressure between 75-120 mm Hg was applied (VAC®, KCI, Vienna, Austria). The first dressing change was performed on day 4. Thirty-six out of 37 patients, suffering from full thickness burns, were discharged with complete wound closure; only one patient succumbed to their injuries. The overall skin graft take rate was over 95%. In conclusion, we consider that split thickness skin graft fixation by TNP is an efficient method in major burns, notably in areas with irregular wound surfaces or subject to movement (e.g. joint proximity), and is worth considering for the treatment of aged patients.

A SEMI-AUTOMATIC RULE SET BUILDING METHOD FOR URBAN LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Y. Gu

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Classification rule set is important for Land Cover classification, which refers to features and decision rules. The selection of features and decision are based on an iterative trial-and-error approach that is often utilized in GEOBIA, however, it is time-consuming and has a poor versatility. This study has put forward a rule set building method for Land cover classification based on human knowledge and machine learning. The use of machine learning is to build rule sets effectively which will overcome the iterative trial-and-error approach. The use of human knowledge is to solve the shortcomings of existing machine learning method on insufficient usage of prior knowledge, and improve the versatility of rule sets. A two-step workflow has been introduced, firstly, an initial rule is built based on Random Forest and CART decision tree. Secondly, the initial rule is analyzed and validated based on human knowledge, where we use statistical confidence interval to determine its threshold. The test site is located in Potsdam City. We utilised the TOP, DSM and ground truth data. The results show that the method could determine rule set for Land Cover classification semi-automatically, and there are static features for different land cover classes.

Meeting of the ITPA Topical Group on Diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Costley, A.E.; Donne, A.J.H.

2002-01-01

The first meeting of the International Tokamak Physics Activities (ITPA) Topical Group (TG) on diagnostics was held at the Ioffe Physical-Technical institute, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, on 14-16 November 2001. In total 38 participants attended the meeting and all four ITPA partners (EU, JA, RF and US) were represented. This summary covers mainly the discussions at the TG meeting. The meeting immediately followed a progress meeting, held in the same location on 12-13 November 2001, on the efforts carried out in the Russian Federation on diagnostics for ITER and burning plasma experiments

OpenMPI and ExxonMobil Topics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hjelm, Nathan Thomas [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Pritchard, Howard Porter [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-09-09

These are a series of slides for a presentation for ExxonMobil's visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Topics covered are: Open MPI - The Release Story, MPI-3 RMA in Open MPI, MPI dynamic process management and Open MPI, and new options with CLE 6. Open MPI RMA features are: since v2.0.0 full support for the MPI-3.1 specification, support for non-contiguous datatypes, support for direct use of the RDMA capabilities of high performance networks (Cray Gemini/Aries, Infiniband), starting in v2.1.0 will have support for using network atomic operations for MPI_Fetch_and_op and MPI_Compare_and_swap, tested with MPI_THREAD_MULTIPLE.

Diffusion-synthetic acceleration methods for discrete-ordinates problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Larsen, E.W.

1984-01-01

The diffusion-synthetic acceleration (DSA) method is an iterative procedure for obtaining numerical solutions of discrete-ordinates problems. The DSA method is operationally more complicated than the standard source-iteration (SI) method, but if encoded properly it converges much more rapidly, especially for problems with diffusion-like regions. In this article we describe the basic ideas behind the DSA method and give a (roughly chronological) review of its long development. We conclude with a discussion which covers additional topics, including some remaining open problems an the status of current efforts aimed at solving these problems

BOOK REVIEW: Advanced Topics in Computational Partial Differential Equations: Numerical Methods and Diffpack Programming

Science.gov (United States)

Katsaounis, T. D.

2005-02-01

The scope of this book is to present well known simple and advanced numerical methods for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) and how to implement these methods using the programming environment of the software package Diffpack. A basic background in PDEs and numerical methods is required by the potential reader. Further, a basic knowledge of the finite element method and its implementation in one and two space dimensions is required. The authors claim that no prior knowledge of the package Diffpack is required, which is true, but the reader should be at least familiar with an object oriented programming language like C++ in order to better comprehend the programming environment of Diffpack. Certainly, a prior knowledge or usage of Diffpack would be a great advantage to the reader. The book consists of 15 chapters, each one written by one or more authors. Each chapter is basically divided into two parts: the first part is about mathematical models described by PDEs and numerical methods to solve these models and the second part describes how to implement the numerical methods using the programming environment of Diffpack. Each chapter closes with a list of references on its subject. The first nine chapters cover well known numerical methods for solving the basic types of PDEs. Further, programming techniques on the serial as well as on the parallel implementation of numerical methods are also included in these chapters. The last five chapters are dedicated to applications, modelled by PDEs, in a variety of fields. The first chapter is an introduction to parallel processing. It covers fundamentals of parallel processing in a simple and concrete way and no prior knowledge of the subject is required. Examples of parallel implementation of basic linear algebra operations are presented using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) programming environment. Here, some knowledge of MPI routines is required by the reader. Examples solving in parallel simple PDEs using

Topics in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1963-2015.

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, JungSu; Stewart, Alan E; Phelps, Rosemary E

2017-11-01

Historical trends in a scientific field should be apparent in the changing content of journal articles over time. Using a topic modeling approach, a statistical method for quantifying the thematic content of text, 70 topics were extracted from the abstracts of 3,603 articles published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology from 1963 to 2015. After examining interpretability of 70 topics derived from the model, 64 meaningful topics and their trends were named. In addition, the authors also classified some of the related topics into 4 categories-counseling process and outcome, multiculturalism, research methodology, and vocational psychology. Counseling process and outcome related topics have decreased recently, while topics relating to multiculturalism and diversity have shown increasing trends. The authors also discussed trends that were observed and tried to account for the changing frequencies of some important research topics within these categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Digital Social Network Mining for Topic Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

Moradianzadeh, Pooya; Mohi, Maryam; Sadighi Moshkenani, Mohsen

Networked computers are expanding more and more around the world, and digital social networks becoming of great importance for many people's work and leisure. This paper mainly focused on discovering the topic of exchanging information in digital social network. In brief, our method is to use a hierarchical dictionary of related topics and words that mapped to a graph. Then, with comparing the extracted keywords from the context of social network with graph nodes, probability of relation between context and desired topics will be computed. This model can be used in many applications such as advertising, viral marketing and high-risk group detection.

Recent Topical Research on Global, Energy, Health & Medical, and Tourism Economics, and Global Software

NARCIS (Netherlands)

C-L. Chang (Chia-Lin); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

2017-01-01

textabstractThe paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted “global” in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on

Topical diclofenac therapy for osteoarthritis: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Zhen-Han; Zeng, Chao; Yang, Ye; Li, Yu-Sheng; Wei, Jie; Yang, Tuo; Li, Hui; Lei, Guang-Hua

2016-05-01

The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of topical diclofenac therapy for osteoarthritis (OA). A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was conducted. A comprehensive literature search, covering the databases of Medline, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and EMBASE, was conducted in September 2014 to identify the randomized controlled trials which adopted the topical diclofenac therapy for OA. A total of nine papers were included in this meta-analysis. Topical diclofenac appears to be effective in both pain relief (standard mean differences (SMD) = 0.40; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.19 to 0.62; P = 0.0003) and function improvement (SMD = 0.23; 95 % CI 0.03 to 0.43; P = 0.03) when compared with the control group. The sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis showed that the result of pain intensity was stable and reliable, while the result of physical function improvement was vague. With respect to safety, topical diclofenac demonstrated a higher incidence of adverse events such as dry skin, rash, dermatitis, neck pain, and withdrawal. Topical diclofenac is effective in pain relief as a treatment of OA. It may also have a potential effect in function improvement, which needs further studies to be explored. Although, some adverse effects were observed in the application of topical diclofenac, none of them was serious.

Developing topic-specific search filters for PubMed with click-through data.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, J; Lu, Z

2013-01-01

Search filters have been developed and demonstrated for better information access to the immense and ever-growing body of publications in the biomedical domain. However, to date the number of filters remains quite limited because the current filter development methods require significant human efforts in manual document review and filter term selection. In this regard, we aim to investigate automatic methods for generating search filters. We present an automated method to develop topic-specific filters on the basis of users' search logs in PubMed. Specifically, for a given topic, we first detect its relevant user queries and then include their corresponding clicked articles to serve as the topic-relevant document set accordingly. Next, we statistically identify informative terms that best represent the topic-relevant document set using a background set composed of topic irrelevant articles. Lastly, the selected representative terms are combined with Boolean operators and evaluated on benchmark datasets to derive the final filter with the best performance. We applied our method to develop filters for four clinical topics: nephrology, diabetes, pregnancy, and depression. For the nephrology filter, our method obtained performance comparable to the state of the art (sensitivity of 91.3%, specificity of 98.7%, precision of 94.6%, and accuracy of 97.2%). Similarly, high-performing results (over 90% in all measures) were obtained for the other three search filters. Based on PubMed click-through data, we successfully developed a high-performance method for generating topic-specific search filters that is significantly more efficient than existing manual methods. All data sets (topic-relevant and irrelevant document sets) used in this study and a demonstration system are publicly available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Lu/downloads/CQ_filter/

The Optical Society's 2016 topical meeting on optical interference coatings: introduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Ristau, Detlev; Li, Li; Sargent, Robert; Sytchkova, Anna

2017-02-01

This feature issue of Applied Optics is dedicated to the 13th Topical Meeting on Optical Interference Coatings, which was held June 19-24, 2016, in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The conference, taking place every three years, is a focal point for global technical interchange in the field of optical interference coatings and provides premier opportunities for people working in the field to present their new advances in research and development. Papers presented at the meeting covered a broad range of topics, including fundamental research on coating design theory, new materials, and deposition and characterization technologies, as well as the vast and growing number of applications in electronic displays, communication, optical instruments, high power and ultra-fast lasers, solar cells, space missions, gravitational wave detection, and many others.

Changing the Topic. Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Allan, R.J.

2014-01-01

Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic

Topical Hazard Evaluation Program of Candidate Insect Repellent AI3- 39053a

Science.gov (United States)

1987-05-01

StudyNo. 75-51-O 71-R7 Mnay 19R71 12 PERSONAL AUTHOR(S) William T. Huebsam, SGT, U.S.A.; Maurice H. Weeks 1I8. TYPE Of REPORT 13b TIME COVERED 114...ARMY u.S. AUT ENVIVIf[NNIAL HYGINE AMIdT ASCROELN PROVING GROUND. MARYLAND M1蚉 HSHB-MO-T TOPICAL HAZARD EVALUATION PROGRAM OF CANDIDATE INSECT

The finite element method and applications in engineering using ANSYS

CERN Document Server

Madenci, Erdogan

2015-01-01

This textbook offers theoretical and practical knowledge of the finite element method. The book equips readers with the skills required to analyze engineering problems using ANSYS®, a commercially available FEA program. Revised and updated, this new edition presents the most current ANSYS® commands and ANSYS® screen shots, as well as modeling steps for each example problem. This self-contained, introductory text minimizes the need for additional reference material by covering both the fundamental topics in finite element methods and advanced topics concerning modeling and analysis. It focuses on the use of ANSYS® through both the Graphics User Interface (GUI) and the ANSYS® Parametric Design Language (APDL). Extensive examples from a range of engineering disciplines are presented in a straightforward, step-by-step fashion. Key topics include: • An introduction to FEM • Fundamentals and analysis capabilities of ANSYS® • Fundamentals of discretization and approximation functions • Modeling techniq...

Proceedings of the first topical meeting on Asian network for accelerator-driven systems and nuclear transmutation technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sasa, Toshinobu

2016-03-01

The first topical meeting on Asian Network for Accelerator-driven System (ADS) and Nuclear Transmutation Technology (NTT) was held on 26-27 October 2015 at the J-PARC Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan. The topical meeting was an optional one in-between the regular meeting, which is held in every two years. Instead of the regular meetings, which cover all research fields for ADS and NTT, such as accelerator, spallation target, subcritical reactor, fuel, and material, the topical meeting is focused on a specific topic to make technical discussions more deeply. In this meeting, the technology for lead-bismuth eutectic alloy was selected, as it was one of the hot issues in the world, and the topic was deeply discussed by specialists in Asian countries. This report summarizes all presentation materials discussed in the meeting. (author)

A Legal Odyssey, 2001. Papers [of the] Education Law Association Conference (47th, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 15-17, 2001). Topic Outlines.

Science.gov (United States)

Education Law Association, Dayton, OH.

This document is a collection of 53 topic outlines and conference papers whose topics cover a multitude of aspects of educational law. Subjects include the impacts of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) on "normal" students, rights of nontenured teachers, sexual discrimination and harassment, school disciplinary issues,…

The efficacy of topical Royal Jelly on diabetic foot ulcers healing: A case series

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mansour Siavash

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Foot ulcers and infections are the major sources of morbidity in individuals with diabetes mellitus. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of topical Royal Jelly (a worker honey bee product on healing diabetic foot ulcers. Methods: Diabetic patients with foot ulcers that were referred to our clinic at Khorshid Hospital, Isfahan, Iran; were evaluated three times a week and treated according to standard treatments consisted of offloading, infection control, vascular improvement and debridement if required. In addition, all ulcers were measured and then topical sterile 5% Royal Jelly was applied on the total surface area of the wounds. Eventually, they were covered with sterile dressings. Each patient was followed for a period of three months or until the complete healing. Results: A total of eight patients were enrolled in this study. Of these, two had two ulcers and, therefore, ten ulcers were evaluated. Two ulcers were excluded. Seven of the remained eight ulcers healed. Mean duration of complete healing was 41 days. One ulcer did not completely heal but improved to 40% smaller in length, 32% in width and 28% in depth. The mean length, width and depth reduction rates were 0.35 mm/day, 0.28 mm/day and 0.11 mm/day, respectively. Conclusions: Royal Jelly dressing may be an effective method for treating diabetic foot ulcers besides standard treatments.

46th Annual meeting on nuclear technology (AMNT 2015). Key topic / Enhanced safety and operation excellence / Sustainable reactor operation management - safe, efficient, valuable

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fischer, Erwin

2015-01-01

Summary report on the following Topical Session of the 46 th Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology (AMNT 2015) held in Berlin, 5 to 7 May 2015: - Sustainable Reactor Operation Management - Safe, Efficient, Valuable (Erwin Fischer) The other Sessions of the Key Topics - ''Outstanding Know-How and Sustainable Innovations'', - ''Enhanced Safety and Operation Excellence'' and - ''Decommissioning Experience and Waste Management Solutions'' have been covered in atw 7 (2015) and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Combinatorial aspects of covering arrays

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Charles J. Colbourn

2004-11-01

Full Text Available Covering arrays generalize orthogonal arrays by requiring that t -tuples be covered, but not requiring that the appearance of t -tuples be balanced.Their uses in screening experiments has found application in software testing, hardware testing, and a variety of fields in which interactions among factors are to be identified. Here a combinatorial view of covering arrays is adopted, encompassing basic bounds, direct constructions, recursive constructions, algorithmic methods, and applications.

Atom probe field ion microscopy and related topics: A bibliography 1989

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miller, M.K.; Hawkins, A.R.; Russell, K.F.

1990-12-01

This bibliography includes references related to the following topics: atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM), field ion spectroscopy (FIM), field emission microscopy (FEM), liquid metal ion sources (LMIS), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and theory. Technique-orientated studies and applications are included. This bibliography covers the period 1989. The references contained in this document were compiled from a variety of sources including computer searches and personal lists of publications

SASP. Contributions to the 13. Symposium on atomic and surface physics and related topics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Scheier, P; Maerk, T [eds.

2002-07-01

The XIII symposium on Atomic and Surface Physics and related Topics (SASP) is devoted to cover the research of interactions between ions, electrons, photons, atoms, molecules and clusters and their interaction with surfaces. This year there was a special session dedicated to proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry covering its applications in different fields and a mini symposium on the radiation action on bio-molecules such as uracil. The contributions included in the proceeding correspond to invited lectures and poster sessions, consisting of short and extended abstracts as well as short articles. (nevyjel)

SASP. Contributions to the 13. Symposium on atomic and surface physics and related topics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scheier, P.; Maerk, T.

2002-01-01

The XIII symposium on Atomic and Surface Physics and related Topics (SASP) is devoted to cover the research of interactions between ions, electrons, photons, atoms, molecules and clusters and their interaction with surfaces. This year there was a special session dedicated to proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry covering its applications in different fields and a mini symposium on the radiation action on bio-molecules such as uracil. The contributions included in the proceeding correspond to invited lectures and poster sessions, consisting of short and extended abstracts as well as short articles. (nevyjel)

Diffusion-synthetic acceleration methods for the discrete-ordinates equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Larsen, E.W.

1983-01-01

The diffusion-synthetic acceleration (DSA) method is an iterative procedure for obtaining numerical solutions of discrete-ordinates problems. The DSA method is operationally more complicated than the standard source-iteration (SI) method, but if encoded properly it converges much more rapidly, especially for problems with diffusion-like regions. In this article we describe the basic ideas beind the DSA method and give a (roughly chronological) review of its long development. We conclude with a discussion which covers additional topics, including some remaining open problems and the status of current efforts aimed at solving these problems

Study on the inside gas flow visualization of oxygen sensor cover; Kashika ni yoru O2 sensor cover nai no gas nagare hyoka

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hocho, S; Mitsuishi, Y; Inagaki, M [Nippon Soken, Inc., Tokyo (Japan); Hamaguchi, S; Mizusawa, K [Toyota Motor Corp., Aichi (Japan)

1997-10-01

In order to make clear the difference of the response time between the oxygen sensors with different protection covers, we visualized gas flow inside of sensor covers by means of two experimental methods: One is `Smoke Suspension Method` using liquid paraffin vapor as the smoke. With smoke suspension method, we detected the streamlines inside of the covers. The other is `Color Reaction Method` using the reaction of phenolphthalein and NH3 gas. With color reaction method, we confirmed the streamline inside of the cover and furthermore detected the difference of the response time of each sensor. 3 refs., 7 figs., 1 tab.

Topical administration of orbital fat-derived stem cells promotes corneal tissue regeneration

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Introduction Topical administration of eye drops is the major route for drug delivery to the cornea. Orbital fat-derived stem cells (OFSCs) possess an in vitro corneal epithelial differentiation capacity. Both the safety and immunomodulatory ability of systemic OFSC transplantation were demonstrated in our previous work. In this study, we investigated the safety, therapeutic effect, and mechanism(s) of topical OFSC administration in an extensive alkali-induced corneal wound. Methods Corneal injury was created by contact of a piece of 0.5 N NaOH-containing filter paper on the corneal surface of a male Balb/c mouse for 30 s. The area of the filter paper covered the central 70% or 100% of the corneal surface. OFSCs (2 × 105) in 5 μl phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) were given by topical administration (T) twice a day or by two intralimbal (IL) injections in the right cornea, while 5 μl of PBS in the left cornea served as the control. Results Topical OFSCs promoted corneal re-epithelialization of both the limbal-sparing and limbal-involved corneal wounds. In the first three days, topical OFSCs significantly reduced alkali-induced corneal edema and stromal infiltration according to a histopathological examination. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining revealed that transplanted cells were easily detectable in the corneal epithelium, limbal epithelium and stroma, but only some of transplanted cells at the limbal epithelium had differentiated into cytokeratin 3-expressing cells. OFSCs did not alter neutrophil (Ly6G) levels in the cornea, but significantly reduced macrophage (CD68) infiltration and inducible nitrous oxide synthetase (iNOS) production during acute corneal injury as quantified by a Western blot analysis. Continuous topical administration of OFSCs for seven days improved corneal transparency, and this was accompanied by diffuse stromal engraftment of transplanted cells and differentiation into p63-expressing cells at the limbal area. The

Implementación de la metodología Corine Land Cover con imágenes Ikonos The Corine Land Cover method based on Ikonos images

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Germán Mauricio Valencia Hernández

2009-07-01

Full Text Available En Colombia, desde hace algunos años, se viene trabajando en la construcción de cartografía temática de usos del suelo escala 1:100.000, utilizando la metodología desarrollada en Europa y denominada Corine Land Cover (CLC. Esto se ha logrado con el apoyo del Instituto Forestal Nacional de Francia (ONF a varios organismos nacionales, como el Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC, la Corporación Autónoma Regional Cormagdalena y el Instituto de Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM. El objetivo de la investigación fue determinar los cambios en el uso del suelo entre 1992 y 2005 para una región de los Andes colombianos, además identificar las potencialidades y limitaciones de la metodología CLC en el ámbito colombiano. Para ello se ajustó la leyenda a las condiciones de Colombia, se mejoró la unidad mínima de mapeo a 0.5 ha, y se utilizaron como fuentes de información escenas Ikonos Geo no ortorrectificadas. Con la metodología aplicada en esta investigación, se encontró entre los años 1992 y 2005, una disminución del área total en fragmentos boscosos, una disminución del área total en pastos, y un aumento en cultivos. Esta metodología puede ser utilizada en tareas de actualización de coberturas del suelo que requieran un alto nivel de detalle, sin embargo, se recomienda disminuir los errores geométricos con imágenes ortorrectificadas al trabajar en zonas de alta pendiente como es el caso de los Andes colombianos.During the last few years, the European Corine Land Cover method has been used in Colombia in order to update land use maps. Four institutes have been involved in this process: The National Forest Institute of France (ONF, El Instituto Geográfico Agustin Codazzi (IGAC, La Corporación Autonoma Regional Cormagdalena, and El instituto de Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM. The goal of this paper was to determine Land use-land cover change based on the CLC method. The study ranges between 1992 and 2005 along a transect of the

Topical Therapy of Acute Pharyngitis in Children

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Yu.K. Bolbot

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses the methods of topical antiinflammatory therapy for acute pharyngitis in children. The analysis of the complex of mechanisms (antiinflammatory, local analgesic ones of Tantum Verde® action and method of its application are provided.

Topical Melatonin for Treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia

OpenAIRE

Fischer, Tobias W; Tr?eb, Ralph M; H?nggi, Gabriella; Innocenti, Marcello; Elsner, Peter

2012-01-01

Background: In the search for alternative agents to oral finasteride and topical minoxidil for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia (AGA), melatonin, a potent antioxidant and growth modulator, was identified as a promising candidate based on in vitro and in vivo studies. Materials and Methods: One pharmacodynamic study on topical application of melatonin and four clinical pre-post studies were performed in patients with androgenetic alopecia or general hair loss and evaluated by standardise...

Linear algebra and matrices topics for a second course

CERN Document Server

Shapiro, Helene

2015-01-01

Linear algebra and matrix theory are fundamental tools for almost every area of mathematics, both pure and applied. This book combines coverage of core topics with an introduction to some areas in which linear algebra plays a key role, for example, block designs, directed graphs, error correcting codes, and linear dynamical systems. Notable features include a discussion of the Weyr characteristic and Weyr canonical forms, and their relationship to the better-known Jordan canonical form; the use of block cyclic matrices and directed graphs to prove Frobenius's theorem on the structure of the eigenvalues of a nonnegative, irreducible matrix; and the inclusion of such combinatorial topics as BIBDs, Hadamard matrices, and strongly regular graphs. Also included are McCoy's theorem about matrices with property P, the Bruck-Ryser-Chowla theorem on the existence of block designs, and an introduction to Markov chains. This book is intended for those who are familiar with the linear algebra covered in a typical first c...

Development of a Risk-Based Probabilistic Performance-Assessment Method for Long-Term Cover Systems - 2nd Edition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

HO, CLIFFORD K.; ARNOLD, BILL W.; COCHRAN, JOHN R.; TAIRA, RANDAL Y.

2002-01-01

A probabilistic, risk-based performance-assessment methodology has been developed to assist designers, regulators, and stakeholders in the selection, design, and monitoring of long-term covers for contaminated subsurface sites. This report describes the method, the software tools that were developed, and an example that illustrates the probabilistic performance-assessment method using a repository site in Monticello, Utah. At the Monticello site, a long-term cover system is being used to isolate long-lived uranium mill tailings from the biosphere. Computer models were developed to simulate relevant features, events, and processes that include water flux through the cover, source-term release, vadose-zone transport, saturated-zone transport, gas transport, and exposure pathways. The component models were then integrated into a total-system performance-assessment model, and uncertainty distributions of important input parameters were constructed and sampled in a stochastic Monte Carlo analysis. Multiple realizations were simulated using the integrated model to produce cumulative distribution functions of the performance metrics, which were used to assess cover performance for both present- and long-term future conditions. Performance metrics for this study included the water percolation reaching the uranium mill tailings, radon gas flux at the surface, groundwater concentrations, and dose. Results from uncertainty analyses, sensitivity analyses, and alternative design comparisons are presented for each of the performance metrics. The benefits from this methodology include a quantification of uncertainty, the identification of parameters most important to performance (to prioritize site characterization and monitoring activities), and the ability to compare alternative designs using probabilistic evaluations of performance (for cost savings)

46{sup th} Annual meeting on nuclear technology (AMNT 2015). Key topic / Enhanced safety and operation excellence / Sustainable reactor operation management - safe, efficient, valuable

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fischer, Erwin [E.ON Kernkraft GmbH, Global Unit Next Generation, Hannover (Germany)

2015-08-15

Summary report on the following Topical Session of the 46{sup th} Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology (AMNT 2015) held in Berlin, 5 to 7 May 2015: - Sustainable Reactor Operation Management - Safe, Efficient, Valuable (Erwin Fischer) The other Sessions of the Key Topics - ''Outstanding Know-How and Sustainable Innovations'', - ''Enhanced Safety and Operation Excellence'' and - ''Decommissioning Experience and Waste Management Solutions'' have been covered in atw 7 (2015) and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Topics raised by the summary report of the first review meeting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

This document presents the fulfilling of the Brazilian obligations under the Convention on Nuclear Safety. The Chapter 7 of the document contains topics raised by the summary report of the first review meeting. The chapter covers status and position of the regulatory body, collective doses, effluents release trends, adoption of the ICRP 60 and basic safety standards, regulatory strategy, quality assurance, monitoring safety management, international cooperation, probabilistic safety assessment and safety improvement programmes

Topics in extragalactic astronomy with special reference to the southern hemisphere

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vaucouleurs, G. De

1977-01-01

The following topics are covered: classification of galaxies; photometry, colorimetry, spectrophotometry of galaxies; type I supernovae as checks of cosmological models; diameters of galaxies; extragalactic distance indicators; Local Group and nearby group of galaxies; structure of the Local Supercluster of galaxies; anisotropy of the redshifts and kinematics of the Local Supercluster; large scale distribution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies; galaxy counts and probes in depth; problems in the southern hemisphere. (U.K.)

A Descriptive Study of Television News Coverage of Tobacco in the United States: Frequency of Topics, Frames, Exemplars, and Efficacy

Science.gov (United States)

BLAKE, KELLY D.; KAUFMAN, ANNETTE R.; LORENZO, JOSHUA; AUGUSTSON, ERIK M.

2015-01-01

There is a positive correlation between recall of tobacco-related television news and perceived risks of smoking and thoughts about quitting. The authors used Cision US, Inc., to create a sampling frame (N =61,027) of local and national television news coverage of tobacco from October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009, and to draw a nationally representative sample (N =730) for content analysis. The authors conducted a descriptive study to determine the frequency and proportion of stories containing specified tobacco topics, frames, sources, and action messages, and the valence of the coverage. Valence was generally neutral; 68% of stories took a balanced stance, with 26% having a tenor supportive of tobacco control and 6% opposing tobacco control. The most frequently covered topics included smoking bans (n =195) and cessation (n =156). The least covered topics included hookah (n =1) and menthol (n =0). The majority of coverage lacked quoting any source (n =345); government officials (n =144) were the most quoted sources. Coverage lacked action messages or resources; 29 stories (Television news can be leveraged by health communication professionals to increase awareness of underrepresented topics in tobacco control. PMID:26176379

Microblog sentiment analysis using social and topic context.

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Xiaomei; Yang, Jing; Zhang, Jianpei

2018-01-01

Analyzing massive user-generated microblogs is very crucial in many fields, attracting many researchers to study. However, it is very challenging to process such noisy and short microblogs. Most prior works only use texts to identify sentiment polarity and assume that microblogs are independent and identically distributed, which ignore microblogs are networked data. Therefore, their performance is not usually satisfactory. Inspired by two sociological theories (sentimental consistency and emotional contagion), in this paper, we propose a new method combining social context and topic context to analyze microblog sentiment. In particular, different from previous work using direct user relations, we introduce structure similarity context into social contexts and propose a method to measure structure similarity. In addition, we also introduce topic context to model the semantic relations between microblogs. Social context and topic context are combined by the Laplacian matrix of the graph built by these contexts and Laplacian regularization are added into the microblog sentiment analysis model. Experimental results on two real Twitter datasets demonstrate that our proposed model can outperform baseline methods consistently and significantly.

Arts-Based Methods in Education Around the World

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Arts-Based Methods in Education Around the World aims to investigate arts-based encounters in educational settings in response to a global need for studies that connect the cultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, and global elements of arts-based methods in education. In this extraordinary...... collection, contributions are collected from experts all over the world and involve a multiplicity of arts genres and traditions. These contributions bring together diverse cultural and educational perspectives and include a large variety of artistic genres and research methodologies. The topics covered...

A Survey of Beginning Crop Science Courses at 49 U.S. Universities. I. Lecture Format, Teaching Methods, and Topical Content.

Science.gov (United States)

Karnok, Keith J.; Connors, Krista L.

1986-01-01

This paper is the first of a two-part series which discusses the findings related to lecture information in beginning crop science courses offered in Land Grant institutions. Survey results revealed considerable differences regarding course organization and teaching methods, but similarities in overall goals and topic areas. (ML)

Recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software: An overview

NARCIS (Netherlands)

C-L. Chang (Chia-Lin); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

2017-01-01

textabstractThe paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted "global" in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on

Freshman Health Topics

Science.gov (United States)

Hovde, Karen

2011-01-01

This article examines a cluster of health topics that are frequently selected by students in lower division classes. Topics address issues relating to addictive substances, including alcohol and tobacco, eating disorders, obesity, and dieting. Analysis of the topics examines their interrelationships and organization in the reference literature.…

A comparison of evaluation metrics for biomedical journals, articles, and websites in terms of sensitivity to topic.

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Lawrence D; Aphinyanaphongs, Yindalon; Wang, Lily; Aliferis, Constantin F

2011-08-01

Evaluating the biomedical literature and health-related websites for quality are challenging information retrieval tasks. Current commonly used methods include impact factor for journals, PubMed's clinical query filters and machine learning-based filter models for articles, and PageRank for websites. Previous work has focused on the average performance of these methods without considering the topic, and it is unknown how performance varies for specific topics or focused searches. Clinicians, researchers, and users should be aware when expected performance is not achieved for specific topics. The present work analyzes the behavior of these methods for a variety of topics. Impact factor, clinical query filters, and PageRank vary widely across different topics while a topic-specific impact factor and machine learning-based filter models are more stable. The results demonstrate that a method may perform excellently on average but struggle when used on a number of narrower topics. Topic-adjusted metrics and other topic robust methods have an advantage in such situations. Users of traditional topic-sensitive metrics should be aware of their limitations. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Comparison of Evaluation Metrics for Biomedical Journals, Articles, and Websites in Terms of Sensitivity to Topic

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Lawrence D.; Aphinyanaphongs, Yindalon; Wang, Lily; Aliferis, Constantin F.

2011-01-01

Evaluating the biomedical literature and health-related websites for quality are challenging information retrieval tasks. Current commonly used methods include impact factor for journals, PubMed’s clinical query filters and machine learning-based filter models for articles, and PageRank for websites. Previous work has focused on the average performance of these methods without considering the topic, and it is unknown how performance varies for specific topics or focused searches. Clinicians, researchers, and users should be aware when expected performance is not achieved for specific topics. The present work analyzes the behavior of these methods for a variety of topics. Impact factor, clinical query filters, and PageRank vary widely across different topics while a topic-specific impact factor and machine learning-based filter models are more stable. The results demonstrate that a method may perform excellently on average but struggle when used on a number of narrower topics. Topic adjusted metrics and other topic robust methods have an advantage in such situations. Users of traditional topic-sensitive metrics should be aware of their limitations. PMID:21419864

A novel method for improving chest tube insertion skills among medical interns. Using biomaterial-covered mannequin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ozgur Tatli

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Objectives: To develop a low-cost biomaterial-covered chest tube simulation model and assess its possible usefulness for developing the chest tube insertion skills among medical interns. Methods: This mannequin-based interventional study was performed in a University hospital setting. We included 63 physicians performing emergency medicine internship at the Faculty of Medicine, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey, between January 2015 and March 2015. A dummy was prepared for training simulation using a display mannequin. Medical interns received instruction concerning pneumothorax and the chest tube procedure. A total of 63 medical interns participating in this interventional study were asked to insert a chest tube in a biomaterial-covered mannequin. A senior trainee scored their performance using a check list and the mean of the total scores was calculated (21 items; total score, 42. Results: The mean procedural score was 40.9 ± 1.3 of a possible 42. The maximum score of 42 was achieved by 39.7% of the medical interns, while another 33.3% achieved a score of 41. Of the participants, 85% succeeded in inserting the tube via an appropriate technique, achieving a score of 40 or more. Conclusion: Our results indicated that this model could be useful for effective training of medical interns for chest tube insertion, which is an important skill in emergency medicine. This biomaterial-covered model is inexpensive and its use can potentially be widened to improve training methods without significant financial demand.

A novel method for improving chest tube insertion skills among medical interns. Using biomaterial-covered mannequin.

Science.gov (United States)

Tatli, Ozgur; Turkmen, Suha; Imamoglu, Melih; Karaca, Yunus; Cicek, Mustafa; Yadigaroglu, Metin; Bayrak, Selen T; Asik, Olgun; Topbas, Murat; Turedi, Suleyman

2017-10-01

To develop a low-cost biomaterial-covered chest tube simulation model and assess its possible usefulness for developing the chest tube insertion skills among medical interns. Methods: This mannequin-based interventional study was performed in a University hospital setting. We included 63 physicians performing emergency medicine internship at the Faculty of Medicine, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey, between January 2015 and March 2015. A dummy was prepared for training simulation using a display mannequin. Medical interns received instruction concerning pneumothorax and the chest tube procedure. A total of 63 medical interns participating in this interventional study were asked to insert a chest tube in a biomaterial-covered mannequin. A senior trainee scored their performance using a check list and the mean of the total scores was calculated (21 items; total score, 42). Results: The mean procedural score was 40.9 ± 1.3 of a possible 42. The maximum score of 42 was achieved by 39.7% of the medical interns, while another 33.3% achieved a score of 41. Of the participants, 85% succeeded in inserting the tube via an appropriate technique, achieving a score of 40 or more. Conclusion: Our results indicated that this model could be useful for effective training of medical interns for chest tube insertion, which is an important skill in emergency medicine. This biomaterial-covered model is inexpensive and its use can potentially be widened to improve training methods without significant financial demand.

Effect of Different Tillage Methods and Cover Crop Types on Yield and Yield Components of Wheat

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Z Sharefee

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Introduction Conservation agriculture is an appropriate strategy for maintaining and improving agricultural resources which increases crop production and stability and also provides environmental protection. This attitude contributes to the conservation of natural resources (soil, water, and air and is one of the most effective ways to overcome the drought crisis, water management and compensation of soil organic matter in arid and semi-arid regions. The practice of zero-tillage decreases the mineralization of organic matter and contributes to the sequestration of organic carbon in the soil. Higher amounts of organic matter in the soil improve soil structure and root growth, water infiltration and retention, and cation exchange capacity. In addition, zero-tillage reduces soil compaction and crop production costs. Cover crops are cultivated to protect the soil from erosion and elements loss by leaching or runoff and also improve the soil moisture and temperature. Given that South Khorasan farmers still use traditional methods of cultivation of wheat, and cover crops have no place in their farming systems, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cover crops types and tillage systems on yield and yield components of wheat in Birjand region. Materials and Methods A split plot field experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with three replications at the Research Farm of the University of Birjand over the growing season of 2014-2015. The main factor was the type of tillage (no-till, reduced tillage and conventional tillage and cover crop type (chickling pea (Lathyrus sativus, rocket salad (Eruca sativa, triticale (X Triticosecale witmack, barley (Hordeum vulgaris and control (no cover crop was considered as sub plots. Cover crops were planted on July 2014. Before planting wheat, cover crops were dried through spraying paraquat herbicide using a backpack sprayer at a rate of 3 L ha-1. Then the three tillage

Improving Land Use/Land Cover Classification by Integrating Pixel Unmixing and Decision Tree Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chao Yang

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Decision tree classification is one of the most efficient methods for obtaining land use/land cover (LULC information from remotely sensed imageries. However, traditional decision tree classification methods cannot effectively eliminate the influence of mixed pixels. This study aimed to integrate pixel unmixing and decision tree to improve LULC classification by removing mixed pixel influence. The abundance and minimum noise fraction (MNF results that were obtained from mixed pixel decomposition were added to decision tree multi-features using a three-dimensional (3D Terrain model, which was created using an image fusion digital elevation model (DEM, to select training samples (ROIs, and improve ROI separability. A Landsat-8 OLI image of the Yunlong Reservoir Basin in Kunming was used to test this proposed method. Study results showed that the Kappa coefficient and the overall accuracy of integrated pixel unmixing and decision tree method increased by 0.093% and 10%, respectively, as compared with the original decision tree method. This proposed method could effectively eliminate the influence of mixed pixels and improve the accuracy in complex LULC classifications.

Specialists' meeting on heat and mass transfer in the reactor cover gas, Harwell, England, 8-10 October 1985

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1986-07-01

The specialists' meeting on ''Heat and Mass Transfer in the Reactor Cover Gas'' was held at Harwell, the United Kingdom, on 8-10 October 1985. It was attended by 24 participants from all IWGFR member-countries: France, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States. The meeting was presided over by Dr K. Eickhoff of the United Kingdom. The following topical areas were reviewed and discussed during the meeting: 1. National review presentations on the status of activities on heat and mass transfer in the reactor cover gas - 2 papers; 2. Aerosol dynamics - 4 papers; 3. Aerosol trapping - 2 papers; 4. Heat and mass transfer through cover gas in annuli - 3 papers; 5. Radiative properties - 4 papers; 6. Modelling of cover gas - 4 papers. A separate abstract was prepared for each of these papers. On the basis of papers presented and discussed by participants, session summaries and conclusions were drafted on the above topical areas. These summaries, as well as general conclusions and recommendations of the meeting were reviewed and agreed upon by consensus at the end of the meeting

Spatial capture-recapture: a promising method for analyzing data collected using artificial cover objects

Science.gov (United States)

Sutherland, Chris; Munoz, David; Miller, David A.W.; Grant, Evan H. Campbell

2016-01-01

Spatial capture–recapture (SCR) is a relatively recent development in ecological statistics that provides a spatial context for estimating abundance and space use patterns, and improves inference about absolute population density. SCR has been applied to individual encounter data collected noninvasively using methods such as camera traps, hair snares, and scat surveys. Despite the widespread use of capture-based surveys to monitor amphibians and reptiles, there are few applications of SCR in the herpetological literature. We demonstrate the utility of the application of SCR for studies of reptiles and amphibians by analyzing capture–recapture data from Red-Backed Salamanders, Plethodon cinereus, collected using artificial cover boards. Using SCR to analyze spatial encounter histories of marked individuals, we found evidence that density differed little among four sites within the same forest (on average, 1.59 salamanders/m2) and that salamander detection probability peaked in early October (Julian day 278) reflecting expected surface activity patterns of the species. The spatial scale of detectability, a measure of space use, indicates that the home range size for this population of Red-Backed Salamanders in autumn was 16.89 m2. Surveying reptiles and amphibians using artificial cover boards regularly generates spatial encounter history data of known individuals, which can readily be analyzed using SCR methods, providing estimates of absolute density and inference about the spatial scale of habitat use.

Proceedings of the international symposium on atomic, molecular, and condensed matter theory and computational methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Loewdin, Per-Olov; Oehrn, N.Y.; Sabin, J.R.; Zerner, M.C.

1993-01-01

After an introduction and a personal (World War II and postwar) retrospective by C.C.J. Roothaan, 69 papers are presented in fields of quantum biology, quantum chemistry, and condensed matter physics; topics covered include advanced scientific computing, interaction of photons and matter, quantum molecular dynamics, electronic structure methods, polymeric systems, and quantum chemical methods for extended systems. An author index is included

Topical sucralfate treatment of anal fistulotomy wounds: a randomized placebo-controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Pravin J; Heda, Purushottam S; Shrirao, Subhash A; Kalaskar, Surekha S

2011-06-01

Sucralfate is a cytoprotective agent which adheres to mucoproteins and forms a protective barrier at wound sites. In oral form it is a common ulcer medication, and as a topical preparation it has been used to treat a wide variety of wounds. The present study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of topical sucralfate in wound healing after anal fistulotomy. Double-blind, randomized controlled study comparing topical application of sucralfate or placebo. Private outpatient clinic specializing in anorectal disease in Nagpur, India. Patients with a wound length of at least 5 cm after low anal fistulotomy were eligible for the study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive ointment containing 7% sucralfate or a placebo ointment consisting of petroleum jelly. Patients were instructed to apply approximately 3 g of ointment to the wound twice daily after a sitz bath for 6 weeks or until the wound had healed. The wounds were examined by a blinded independent observer at 2, 4, and 6 weeks after the operation. The primary end point was the proportion of patients with wounds that had completely healed. Secondary end points included amount of mucosal covering (scored by the observer), adverse events, and postoperative pain (self-rated on a visual analog scale). Of 80 participants (29 women, 51 men; median age, 23 (range, 17-49) years), 76 participants completed the trial (sucralfate, 39; placebo, 37). At 6-week follow-up, complete wound healing was achieved in 37 patients (95%) in the sucralfate group and 27 patients (73%) in the placebo group (P = .009). Mucosal coverage of the wound was significantly greater with sucralfate than with placebo at each measurement point (P = .01). No adverse events were observed. Postoperative pain scores were significantly lower for sucralfate than for placebo at 2 and 4 weeks after the start of treatment. Wound tissue specimens were not available for morphological and ultrastructural analysis. The results of this study add

Improving features used for hyper-temporal land cover change detection by reducing the uncertainty in the feature extraction method

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Salmon, BP

2017-07-01

Full Text Available the effect which the length of a temporal sliding window has on the success of detecting land cover change. It is shown using a short Fourier transform as a feature extraction method provides meaningful robust input to a machine learning method. In theory...

Review of Research on Educational Leadership and Management in Asia: A Comparative Analysis of Research Topics and Methods, 1995-2012

Science.gov (United States)

Hallinger, Philip; Chen, Junjun

2015-01-01

Over the past two decades scholars have called for a more concerted effort to develop an empirically grounded literature on educational leadership outside of mainstream "Western" contexts. This paper reports the results of a review of research topics and methods that comprise the literature on educational leadership and management in…

Core seismic methods verification report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Olsen, B.E.; Shatoff, H.D.; Rakowski, J.E.; Rickard, N.D.; Thompson, R.W.; Tow, D.; Lee, T.H.

1979-12-01

This report presents the description and validation of the analytical methods for calculation of the seismic loads on an HTGR core and the core support structures. Analytical modeling, integration schemes, parameter assignment, parameter sensitivity, and correlation with test data are key topics which have been covered in detail. Much of the text concerns the description and the results of a series of scale model tests performed to obtain data for code correlation. A discussion of scaling laws, model properties, seismic excitation, instrumentation, and data reduction methods is also presented, including a section on the identification and calculation of statistical errors in the test data

Academicians' and Practitioners' Views on the Importance of the Topical Content in the First Auditing Course

Science.gov (United States)

Armitage, Jack; Poyzer, Jillian K.

2010-01-01

The research question addressed in this study is to compare and identify differences between academics teaching auditing classes and practicing accountants regarding the importance of topics covered in the first university auditing course. This is accomplished by surveying academics and practitioners regarding their perceptions of the importance…

Evaluating topic models with stability

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

De Waal, A

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Topic models are unsupervised techniques that extract likely topics from text corpora, by creating probabilistic word-topic and topic-document associations. Evaluation of topic models is a challenge because (a) topic models are often employed...

Topical report review status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1997-08-01

This report provides industry with procedures for submitting topical reports, guidance on how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) processes and responds to topical report submittals, and an accounting, with review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review by the NRC. This report will be published annually. Each sponsoring organization with one or more topical reports accepted for review copies

Measuring methods and classification in the muscoskeletal radiology; Messverfahren und Klassifikationen in der muskuloskelettalen Radiologie

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Waldt, Simone; Eiber, Matthias; Woertler, Klaus [Klinikum rechts der Isar der Technischen Univ. Muenchen (TUM), Muenchen (Germany). Inst. fuer Radiologie

2011-07-01

The book on measuring methods and classification in the musculoskeletal radiology covers the following topics: legs; hip joint; knee joint; foot; shoulder joint; elbow joint; wrist joint; spinal column; craniocervical transition region and cervical spine; muscular-skeletal carcinomas; osteoporosis; arthrosis; articular cartilage; hemophilia; rheumatic arthritis; muscular injuries; skeleton age.

Global pattern for the effect of climate and land cover on water yield

Science.gov (United States)

Guoy Zhou; Xiaohua Wei; Xiuzhi Chen; Ping Zhou; Xiaodong Liu; Yin Xiao; Ge Sun; David F. Scott; Shuyidan Zhou; Liusheng Hano; Yongxian Su

2015-01-01

Research results on the effects of land cover change on water resources vary greatly and the topic remains controversial. Here we use published data worldwide to examine the validity of Fuh’s equation, which relates annual water yield (R) to a wetness index (precipitation/ potential evapotranspiration; P/PET) and watershed characteristics (m). We identify two critical...

Seepage through a hazardous-waste trench cover

Science.gov (United States)

Healy, R.W.

1989-01-01

Water movement through a waste-trench cover under natural conditions at a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in northwestern Illinois was studied from July 1982 to June 1984, using tensiometers, a moisture probe, and meteorological instruments. Four methods were used to estimate seepage: the Darcy, zero-flux plane, surface-based water-budget, and groundwater-based water-budget methods. Annual seepage estimates ranged from 48 to 216 mm (5-23% of total precipitation), with most seepage occurring in spring. The Darcy method, although limited in accuracy by uncertainty in hydraulic conductivity, was capable of discretizing seepage in space and time and indicated that seepage varied by almost an order of magnitude across the width of the trench. Lowest seepage rates occurred near the center of the cover, where seepage was gradual. Highest rates occurred along the edge of the cover, where seepage was highly episodic, with 84% of the total there being traced to wetting fronts from 28 individual storms. Limitations of the zero-flux-plane method were severe enough for the method to be judged inappropriate for use in this study.Water movement through a waste-trench cover under natural conditions at a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in northwestern Illinois was studied from July 1982 to June 1984, using tensiometers, a moisture probe, and meteorological instruments. Four methods were used to estimate seepage: the Darcy, zero-flux plane, surface-based water-budget, and groundwater-based water-budget methods. Annual seepage estimates ranged from 48 to 216mm (5-23% of total precipitation), with most seepage occurring in spring. The Darcy method, although limited in accuracy by uncertainty in hydraulic conductivity, was capable of discretizing seepage in space and time and indicated that seepage varied by almost an order of magnitude across the width of the trench. Lowest seepage rates occurred near the center of the cover, where seepage was gradual. Highest

Children′s behavioral pain reactions during local anesthetic injection using cotton-roll vibration method compared with routine topical anesthesia: A randomized controlled trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Bagherian

2016-01-01

Conclusion: It may be concluded that the cotton-roll vibration method can be more helpful than the routine topical anesthesia in reducing behavioral pain reactions in children during local anesthesia administration.

Editorial: Latest methods and advances in biotechnology.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sang Yup; Jungbauer, Alois

2014-01-01

The latest "Biotech Methods and Advances" special issue of Biotechnology Journal continues the BTJ tradition of featuring the latest breakthroughs in biotechnology. The special issue is edited by our Editors-in-Chief, Prof. Sang Yup Lee and Prof. Alois Jungbauer and covers a wide array of topics in biotechnology, including the perennial favorite workhorses of the biotech industry, Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell and Escherichia coli. Copyright © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Syntacticized topics in Kurmuk

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Torben

2015-01-01

This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object or an adjunct....... The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, here called orientation. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct......-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized...

Evaluation of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides as Topical Anti-Infectives with Broad Spectrum Activity Against Combat-Related Bacterial and Fungal Wound Infections

Science.gov (United States)

2016-10-01

Inc. Vallejo, CA 94592 REPORT DATE: October 2016 TYPE OF REPORT: Annual PREPARED FOR: U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Fort...2016 2. REPORT TYPE Annual 3. DATES COVERED 30 Sep 2015 - 29 Sep 2016 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Evaluation of Novel Antimicrobial Peptides as Topical...antibiotics and early debridement has been associated with a large reduction in burn wound infections. Current topical antibiotics include

Satellite-derived land covers for runoff estimation using SCS-CN method in Chen-You-Lan Watershed, Taiwan

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wen-Yan; Lin, Chao-Yuan

2017-04-01

The Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method, which was originally developed by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, is widely used to estimate direct runoff volume from rainfall. The runoff Curve Number (CN) parameter is based on the hydrologic soil group and land use factors. In Taiwan, the national land use maps were interpreted from aerial photos in 1995 and 2008. Rapid updating of post-disaster land use map is limited due to the high cost of production, so the classification of satellite images is the alternative method to obtain the land use map. In this study, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in Chen-You-Lan Watershed was derived from dry and wet season of Landsat imageries during 2003 - 2008. Land covers were interpreted from mean value and standard deviation of NDVI and were categorized into 4 groups i.e. forest, grassland, agriculture and bare land. Then, the runoff volume of typhoon events during 2005 - 2009 were estimated using SCS-CN method and verified with the measured runoff data. The result showed that the model efficiency coefficient is 90.77%. Therefore, estimating runoff by using the land cover map classified from satellite images is practicable.

International topical meeting on nuclear research applications and utilization of accelerators. Book of abstracts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2009-01-01

Applications of particle accelerators cover a number of areas, from strategic and applied research, safety and security, environmental applications, materials research and analytical sciences, to radioisotope production and radiation processing. Accelerator based techniques and pulsed neutron sources are expected to lead to new initiatives in materials research of relevance for both the nuclear and non-nuclear fields. Material science studies with the use of accelerators, neutron beams and other nuclear analytical methods are relevant to the development of advanced reactors, nuclear fuel cycle needs and fusion research. In this regard, a better understanding of the irradiation effects in materials for energy and non-energy applications is needed, and is reflected in accelerator techniques for modification and analysis of materials for nuclear technologies. Accelerator applications for innovative nuclear systems aiming at rad-waste transmutation (e.g., accelerator driven systems) are being pursued in many countries. Research and development using accelerators involves a broad spectrum of skills to build a cadre of trained experts in nuclear techniques in IAEA Member States, and to generate knowledge for innovative methodologies and tools. The present conference is also being held in cooperation with the American Nuclear Society (ANS), which successfully organized the series of accelerator applications conferences known as AccApp. The ANS series of topical meetings has provided a forum for the global exchange of scientific and technical knowledge on a wide variety of related topics since the first AccApp took place in 1997 in Albuquerque, USA. The last conference which was held in 2007 in Pocatello, USA, was jointly organized by the ANS and the IAEA. The main objectives of the conference are to promote exchange of information among IAEA Member States representatives/delegates and to discuss new trends in accelerator applications including nuclear materials research

A versatile, stability-indicating and high-throughput ultra-fast liquid chromatography method for the determination of isoflavone aglycones in soybeans, topical formulations, and permeation assays.

Science.gov (United States)

Nemitz, Marina C; Yatsu, Francini K J; Bidone, Juliana; Koester, Letícia S; Bassani, Valquiria L; Garcia, Cássia V; Mendez, Andreas S L; von Poser, Gilsane L; Teixeira, Helder F

2015-03-01

There is a growing interest in the pharmaceutical field concerning isoflavones topical delivery systems, especially with regard to their skin care properties and antiherpetic activity. In this context, the present work describes an ultra-fast liquid chromatography method (UFLC) for determining daidzein, glycitein, and genistein in different matrices during the development of topical systems containing isoflavone aglycones (IA) obtained from soybeans. The method showed to be specific, precise, accurate, and linear (0.1 to 5 µg mL(-1)) for IA determination in soybean acid extract, IA-rich fraction obtained after the purification process, IA loaded-nanoemulsions, and topical hydrogel, as well as for permeation/retention assays in porcine skin and porcine esophageal mucosa. The matrix effect was determined for all complex matrices, demonstrating low effect during the analysis. The stability indicating UFLC method was verified by submitting IA to acidic, alkaline, oxidative, and thermal stress conditions, and no interference of degradation products was detected during analysis. Mass spectrometry was performed to show the main compounds produced after acid hydrolysis of soybeans, as well as suggest the main degradation products formed after stress conditions. Besides the IA, hydroxymethylfurfural and ethoxymethylfurfural were produced and identified after acid hydrolysis of the soybean extract and well separated by the UFLC method. The method's robustness was confirmed using the Plackett-Burman experimental design. Therefore, the new method affords fast IA analysis during routine processes, extract purification, products development, and bioanalytical assays. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Learning From Short Text Streams With Topic Drifts.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Peipei; He, Lu; Wang, Haiyan; Hu, Xuegang; Zhang, Yuhong; Li, Lei; Wu, Xindong

2017-09-18

Short text streams such as search snippets and micro blogs have been popular on the Web with the emergence of social media. Unlike traditional normal text streams, these data present the characteristics of short length, weak signal, high volume, high velocity, topic drift, etc. Short text stream classification is hence a very challenging and significant task. However, this challenge has received little attention from the research community. Therefore, a new feature extension approach is proposed for short text stream classification with the help of a large-scale semantic network obtained from a Web corpus. It is built on an incremental ensemble classification model for efficiency. First, more semantic contexts based on the senses of terms in short texts are introduced to make up of the data sparsity using the open semantic network, in which all terms are disambiguated by their semantics to reduce the noise impact. Second, a concept cluster-based topic drifting detection method is proposed to effectively track hidden topic drifts. Finally, extensive studies demonstrate that as compared to several well-known concept drifting detection methods in data stream, our approach can detect topic drifts effectively, and it enables handling short text streams effectively while maintaining the efficiency as compared to several state-of-the-art short text classification approaches.

Melanoma or Pseudo melanoma Change in a pigmented lesion after application of topical 5-Fluorouracil

Science.gov (United States)

2017-10-26

2. REPORT TYPE 3. DATES COVERED (From - To) 10/26/2017 Poster 10/26/2017-10/29/2017 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Melanoma or Pseudo...melanoma? Change in a pigmented lesion after application of topical 5-Fluorouracil. 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d

An Investigation of Prioritizing Research Topics in Professional Communication

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Buschagen, Richard

1997-01-01

.... This effort was intended to address possible causes of this problem by establishing the importance of nine research topic areas, six data collection methods/sources, and three data analysis methods...

Sky cover from MFRSR observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Kassianov

2011-07-01

Full Text Available The diffuse all-sky surface irradiances measured at two nearby wavelengths in the visible spectral range and their modeled clear-sky counterparts are the main components of a new method for estimating the fractional sky cover of different cloud types, including cumuli. The performance of this method is illustrated using 1-min resolution data from a ground-based Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (MFRSR. The MFRSR data are collected at the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF Southern Great Plains (SGP site during the summer of 2007 and represent 13 days with cumuli. Good agreement is obtained between estimated values of the fractional sky cover and those provided by a well-established independent method based on broadband observations.

Techniques involving extreme environment, nondestructive techniques, computer methods in metals research, and data analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bunshah, R.F.

1976-01-01

A number of different techniques which range over several different aspects of materials research are covered in this volume. They are concerned with property evaluation of 4 0 K and below, surface characterization, coating techniques, techniques for the fabrication of composite materials, computer methods, data evaluation and analysis, statistical design of experiments and non-destructive test techniques. Topics covered in this part include internal friction measurements; nondestructive testing techniques; statistical design of experiments and regression analysis in metallurgical research; and measurement of surfaces of engineering materials

Car Covers | Outdoor Covers Canada

OpenAIRE

Covers, Outdoor

2018-01-01

Protect your car from the elements with Ultimate Touch Car Cover. The multi-layer non-woven fabric is soft on the finish and offers 4 seasons all weather protection.https://outdoorcovers.ca/car-covers/

Theoretical and applied aerodynamics and related numerical methods

CERN Document Server

Chattot, J J

2015-01-01

This book covers classical and modern aerodynamics, theories and related numerical methods, for senior and first-year graduate engineering students, including: -The classical potential (incompressible) flow theories for low speed aerodynamics of thin airfoils and high and low aspect ratio wings. - The linearized theories for compressible subsonic and supersonic aerodynamics. - The nonlinear transonic small disturbance potential flow theory, including supercritical wing sections, the extended transonic area rule with lift effect, transonic lifting line and swept or oblique wings to minimize wave drag. Unsteady flow is also briefly discussed. Numerical simulations based on relaxation mixed-finite difference methods are presented and explained. - Boundary layer theory for all Mach number regimes and viscous/inviscid interaction procedures used in practical aerodynamics calculations. There are also four chapters covering special topics, including wind turbines and propellers, airplane design, flow analogies and h...

The Concept of the Interculture in Time: (Intercultural Topics in Textbooks of French as a Foreign Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meta Lah

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the concept of interculturality as used in foreign language didactics. In accordance with the definition of interculturality given in the first part of the article, two categories are included in the analysis – two “levels” of culture, each of them bearing a different name in literature, namely high and popular culture. Various textbooks used for teaching French as a foreign language in Slovenia in both the past and present were chosen for the analysis of topics that cover a fairly long period of time – among them the textbooks by two Slovenian authors: Južnič (1938 and Grad (1954, as well as some generally-used French textbooks, such as Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises (1953, Le nouveau sans frontières (1988 and Nouveau rond point (2011. The article is based on the hypothesis that high culture is more likely to be present in the older textbooks, which are based on traditional methods, whereas in modern textbooks more popular, everyday topics can be found. It is also presumed that topics in modern textbooks are, compared to their more traditional counterparts, introduced in an intercultural manner which could encourage students to compare the culture of the foreign country with their own. Both hypotheses are partly confirmed. In Slovenian textbooks there are very few culture-based topics. On the other hand, they are present in all French textbooks, regardless of the methodology. It is true that Mauger introduces more high culture than the others and that the intercultural topics are presented only in the most recent textbook. In all the others, it is exclusively the culture of the target country that is introduced.

Topical Drugs for Pain Relief

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anjali Srinivasan

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Topical therapy helps patients with oral and perioral pain problems such as ulcers, burning mouth syndrome, temporomandibular disorders, neuromas, neuropathies and neuralgias. Topical drugs used in the field of dentistry are topical anaesthetics, topical analgesics, topical antibiotics and topical corticosteroids. It provides symptomatic/curative effect. Topical drugs are easy to apply, avoids hepatic first pass metabolism and more sites specific. But it can only be used for medications that require low plasma concentrations to achieve a therapeutic effect.

Mathematical methods and models in composites

CERN Document Server

Mantic, Vladislav

2014-01-01

This book provides a representative selection of the most relevant, innovative, and useful mathematical methods and models applied to the analysis and characterization of composites and their behaviour on micro-, meso-, and macroscale. It establishes the fundamentals for meaningful and accurate theoretical and computer modelling of these materials in the future. Although the book is primarily concerned with fibre-reinforced composites, which have ever-increasing applications in fields such as aerospace, many of the results presented can be applied to other kinds of composites. The topics cover

Mapping land cover through time with the Rapid Land Cover Mapper—Documentation and user manual

Science.gov (United States)

Cotillon, Suzanne E.; Mathis, Melissa L.

2017-02-15

The Rapid Land Cover Mapper is an Esri ArcGIS® Desktop add-in, which was created as an alternative to automated or semiautomated mapping methods. Based on a manual photo interpretation technique, the tool facilitates mapping over large areas and through time, and produces time-series raster maps and associated statistics that characterize the changing landscapes. The Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in can be used with any imagery source to map various themes (for instance, land cover, soils, or forest) at any chosen mapping resolution. The user manual contains all essential information for the user to make full use of the Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in. This manual includes a description of the add-in functions and capabilities, and step-by-step procedures for using the add-in. The Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in was successfully used by the U.S. Geological Survey West Africa Land Use Dynamics team to accurately map land use and land cover in 17 West African countries through time (1975, 2000, and 2013).

Ocean waste disposal. A bibliography with abstracts. Search period covered 1964--May 1975

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1975-01-01

The majority of the cited topics discuss the ocean disposal of sewage, sewage sludge, and dredged material, although reports on the disposal of radioactive wastes, brines, and industrial wastes are also covered. The ecological effects are included, as is research on the pollution of the New York Bight. However, studies on the discharge of heated effluents is excluded. Contains 164 abstracts. (auth)

Real-time topic-aware influence maximization using preprocessing.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Wei; Lin, Tian; Yang, Cheng

2016-01-01

Influence maximization is the task of finding a set of seed nodes in a social network such that the influence spread of these seed nodes based on certain influence diffusion model is maximized. Topic-aware influence diffusion models have been recently proposed to address the issue that influence between a pair of users are often topic-dependent and information, ideas, innovations etc. being propagated in networks are typically mixtures of topics. In this paper, we focus on the topic-aware influence maximization task. In particular, we study preprocessing methods to avoid redoing influence maximization for each mixture from scratch. We explore two preprocessing algorithms with theoretical justifications. Our empirical results on data obtained in a couple of existing studies demonstrate that one of our algorithms stands out as a strong candidate providing microsecond online response time and competitive influence spread, with reasonable preprocessing effort.

Advanced topics in control and estimation of state-multiplicative noisy systems

CERN Document Server

Gershon, Eli

2013-01-01

Advanced Topics in Control and Estimation of State-Multiplicative Noisy Systems begins with an introduction and extensive literature survey. The text proceeds to cover solutions of measurement-feedback control and state problems and the formulation of the Bounded Real Lemma for both continuous- and discrete-time systems. The continuous-time reduced-order and stochastic-tracking control problems for delayed systems are then treated. Ideas of nonlinear stability are introduced for infinite-horizon systems, again, in both the continuous- and discrete-time cases. The reader is introduced to six practical examples of noisy state-multiplicative control and filtering associated with various fields of control engineering. The book is rounded out by a three-part appendix containing stochastic tools necessary for a proper appreciation of the text: a basic introduction to nonlinear stochastic differential equations and aspects of switched systems and peak to peak  optimal control and filtering. Advanced Topics in Contr...

Topical medication instillation techniques for glaucoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Li; Wang, Xuemei; Wu, Meijing

2017-02-20

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and the second most common cause of blindness after cataracts. The primary treatment for glaucoma aims to lower intraocular pressure (IOP) with the use of topical medicines. Topical medication instillation techniques, such as eyelid closure and nasolacrimal occlusion when instilling drops, have been proposed as potential methods to increase ocular absorption and decrease systemic absorption of the drops. To investigate the effectiveness of topical medication instillation techniques compared with usual care or another method of instillation of topical medication in the management of glaucoma or ocular hypertension. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (which contains the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Trials Register) (2016, Issue 12), MEDLINE Ovid (1946 to 8 December 2016), Embase Ovid (1947 to 8 December 2016), PubMed (1948 to 8 December 2016), LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature Database) (1982 to 8 December 2016), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts Database (1970 to 8 December 2016), the metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) (www.controlled-trials.com) (last searched 13 May 2013), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov) (searched 8 December 2016) and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en) (searched 8 December 2016). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. We included randomized controlled trials which had compared any topical medication instillation technique with usual care or a different method of instillation of topical medication. Two review authors independently screened records from the searches for eligibility, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data. We followed methods recommended by Cochrane. We identified two trials (122 eyes of 61 participants) that had evaluated a topical medication instillation technique. We

Neutron spectroscopy, nuclear structure, related topics. Abstracts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sukhovoj, A.M.

1996-01-01

Neutron spectroscopy, nuclear structure and related topics are considered. P, T-breaking, neutron beta decay, neutron radiative capture and neutron polarizability are discussed. Reaction with fast neutrons, methodical aspect low-energy fission are considered too

Topics in mathematical and applied statistics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pas, van der S.L.

2017-01-01

This thesis is composed of papers on four topics: Bayesian theory for the sparse normal means problem, specifically for the horseshoe prior (Chapters 1-3), Bayesian theory for community detection (Chapter 4), nested model selection (Chapter 5), and the application of competing risk methods in the

Modern nonparametric, robust and multivariate methods festschrift in honour of Hannu Oja

CERN Document Server

Taskinen, Sara

2015-01-01

Written by leading experts in the field, this edited volume brings together the latest findings in the area of nonparametric, robust and multivariate statistical methods. The individual contributions cover a wide variety of topics ranging from univariate nonparametric methods to robust methods for complex data structures. Some examples from statistical signal processing are also given. The volume is dedicated to Hannu Oja on the occasion of his 65th birthday and is intended for researchers as well as PhD students with a good knowledge of statistics.

Evaluating topic model interpretability from a primary care physician perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Arnold, Corey W; Oh, Andrea; Chen, Shawn; Speier, William

2016-02-01

Probabilistic topic models provide an unsupervised method for analyzing unstructured text. These models discover semantically coherent combinations of words (topics) that could be integrated in a clinical automatic summarization system for primary care physicians performing chart review. However, the human interpretability of topics discovered from clinical reports is unknown. Our objective is to assess the coherence of topics and their ability to represent the contents of clinical reports from a primary care physician's point of view. Three latent Dirichlet allocation models (50 topics, 100 topics, and 150 topics) were fit to a large collection of clinical reports. Topics were manually evaluated by primary care physicians and graduate students. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests for Paired Samples were used to evaluate differences between different topic models, while differences in performance between students and primary care physicians (PCPs) were tested using Mann-Whitney U tests for each of the tasks. While the 150-topic model produced the best log likelihood, participants were most accurate at identifying words that did not belong in topics learned by the 100-topic model, suggesting that 100 topics provides better relative granularity of discovered semantic themes for the data set used in this study. Models were comparable in their ability to represent the contents of documents. Primary care physicians significantly outperformed students in both tasks. This work establishes a baseline of interpretability for topic models trained with clinical reports, and provides insights on the appropriateness of using topic models for informatics applications. Our results indicate that PCPs find discovered topics more coherent and representative of clinical reports relative to students, warranting further research into their use for automatic summarization. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Topical report review status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1982-08-01

A Topical Report Review Status is scheduled to be published semi-annually. The primary purpose of this document is to provide periodic progress reports of on-going topical report reviews, to identify those topical reports for which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff review has been completed and, to the extent practicable, to provide NRC management with sufficient information regarding the conduct of the topical report program to permit taking whatever actions deemed necessary or appropriate. This document is also intended to be a source of information to NRC Licensing Project Managers and other NRC personnel regarding the status of topical reports which may be referenced in applications for which they have responsibility. This status report is published primarily for internal NRC use in managing the topical report program, but is also used by NRC to advise the industry of report review status

Topical report review status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1983-01-01

A Topical Report Review Status is scheduled to be published semi-annually. The primary purpose of this document is to provide periodic progress reports of on-going topical report reviews, to identify those topical reports for which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff review has been completed and, to the extent practicable, to provide NRC management with sufficient information regarding the conduct of the topical report program to permit taking whatever actions deemed necessary or appropriate. This document is also intended to be a source of information to NRC Licensing Project Managers and other NRC personnel regarding the status of topical reports which may be referenced in applications for which they have responsibility. This status report is published primarily for internal NRC use in managing the topical report program, but is also used by NRC to advise the industry of report review status

Pharmacokinetics of bevacizumab after topical and intravitreal administration in human eyes

OpenAIRE

Moisseiev, Elad; Waisbourd, Michael; Ben-Artsi, Elad; Levinger, Eliya; Barak, Adiel; Daniels, Tad; Csaky, Karl; Loewenstein, Anat; Barequet, Irina S.

2013-01-01

Background Topical bevacizumab is a potential treatment modality for corneal neovascularization, and several recent studies have demonstrated its efficacy. No previous study of the pharmacokinetics of topical bevacizumab has been performed in human eyes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the pharmacokinetics of topical administration of bevacizumab in human eyes, and also to compare the pharmacokinetics of intravitreal bevacizumab injections with previously reported data. Methods Tw...

Weed infestation of spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L. depending on the cover crop and weed control method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dorota Gawęda

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of this 3-year field study was to evaluate the effect of some stubble crops and weed control methods on the species composition, number and air-dry weight of weeds in a spring barley crop grown in short-term monoculture. The study was conducted in the period 2009–2011 at the Uhrusk Experimental Farm, on mixed rendzina soil classified as very good rye soil complex. It included stubble crops which were ploughed under in each year (control treatment without cover crop, white mustard, lacy phacelia, a mixture of legumes – narrow-leaf lupin + field pea and 3 weed control methods used in spring barley crops (mechanical, mechanical and chemical, chemical weed control. Veronica persica was the weed species that occurred in greatest numbers in the spring barley crop sown after stubble crops. All cover crops reduced the numbers of Avena fatua which was the dominant species in the control treatment. Chemical as well as chemical and mechanical weed control significantly reduced the numbers of Avena fatua compared to the treatment where only double harrowing was used for weed control. The stubble crops did not reduce weed infestation of spring barley. Compared to the control treatment, the ploughing-in of white mustard and the mixture of legumes reduced the dry weight of weeds by 49.1 and 22.7%, respectively. Mechanical weed management proved to be less effective in reducing the number and dry weight of weeds compared to the other weed control methods. A significant negative correlation was found between the dry weight of weeds in the spring barley crop and the dry weight of the ploughed-in white mustard cover crop under the conditions of chemical weed control as well as in the case of the mixture of legumes when complete mechanical and chemical weed control was used.

Vaccine Hesitancy in Discussion Forums: Computer-Assisted Argument Mining with Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Skeppstedt, Maria; Kerren, Andreas; Stede, Manfred

2018-01-01

Arguments used when vaccination is debated on Internet discussion forums might give us valuable insights into reasons behind vaccine hesitancy. In this study, we applied automatic topic modelling on a collection of 943 discussion posts in which vaccine was debated, and six distinct discussion topics were detected by the algorithm. When manually coding the posts ranked as most typical for these six topics, a set of semantically coherent arguments were identified for each extracted topic. This indicates that topic modelling is a useful method for automatically identifying vaccine-related discussion topics and for identifying debate posts where these topics are discussed. This functionality could facilitate manual coding of salient arguments, and thereby form an important component in a system for computer-assisted coding of vaccine-related discussions.

Advanced Topics in Computational Partial Differential Equations: Numerical Methods and Diffpack Programming

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Katsaounis, T D

2005-01-01

The scope of this book is to present well known simple and advanced numerical methods for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) and how to implement these methods using the programming environment of the software package Diffpack. A basic background in PDEs and numerical methods is required by the potential reader. Further, a basic knowledge of the finite element method and its implementation in one and two space dimensions is required. The authors claim that no prior knowledge of the package Diffpack is required, which is true, but the reader should be at least familiar with an object oriented programming language like C++ in order to better comprehend the programming environment of Diffpack. Certainly, a prior knowledge or usage of Diffpack would be a great advantage to the reader. The book consists of 15 chapters, each one written by one or more authors. Each chapter is basically divided into two parts: the first part is about mathematical models described by PDEs and numerical methods to solve these models and the second part describes how to implement the numerical methods using the programming environment of Diffpack. Each chapter closes with a list of references on its subject. The first nine chapters cover well known numerical methods for solving the basic types of PDEs. Further, programming techniques on the serial as well as on the parallel implementation of numerical methods are also included in these chapters. The last five chapters are dedicated to applications, modelled by PDEs, in a variety of fields. In summary, the book focuses on the computational and implementational issues involved in solving partial differential equations. The potential reader should have a basic knowledge of PDEs and the finite difference and finite element methods. The examples presented are solved within the programming framework of Diffpack and the reader should have prior experience with the particular software in order to take full advantage of the book. Overall

75 FR 26647 - Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution

Science.gov (United States)

2010-05-12

.... FDA-2010-N-0002] Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution... are treated with a topical solution of ivermectin. DATES: This rule is effective May 12, 2010. FOR... ANADA 200-340 for PRIVERMECTIN (ivermectin), a topical solution used on cattle to control infestations...

IV international conference on computational methods in marine engineering : selected papers

CERN Document Server

Oñate, Eugenio; García-Espinosa, Julio; Kvamsdal, Trond; Bergan, Pål; MARINE 2011

2013-01-01

This book contains selected papers from the Fourth International Conference on Computational Methods in Marine Engineering, held at Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal in September 2011.  Nowadays, computational methods are an essential tool of engineering, which includes a major field of interest in marine applications, such as the maritime and offshore industries and engineering challenges related to the marine environment and renewable energies. The 2011 Conference included 8 invited plenary lectures and 86 presentations distributed through 10 thematic sessions that covered many of the most relevant topics of marine engineering today. This book contains 16 selected papers from the Conference that cover “CFD for Offshore Applications”, “Fluid-Structure Interaction”, “Isogeometric Methods for Marine Engineering”, “Marine/Offshore Renewable Energy”, “Maneuvering and Seakeeping”, “Propulsion and Cavitation” and “Ship Hydrodynamics”.  The papers we...

Nuclear methods in national development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1993-01-01

This volume of the proceedings of the First National Conference on Nuclear Methods held at Kongo Conference Hotel Zaria from 2-4 September 1993, contains the full text of about 30 technical papers and speeches of invited dignitaries presented at the conference. The technical papers are original or review articles containing results and experiences in nuclear and related analytical techniques. Topics treated include neutron generator operation and control, nuclear data, application of nuclear techniques in environment, geochemistry, medicine, biology, agriculture, material science and industries. General topics in nuclear laboratory organization and research experiences were also covered. The papers were fully discussed during the conference and authors were requested to make changes in the manuscripts where necessary. However, they were further edited. The organizing committee wishes to thank all authors for their presentation and cooperation in submitting their manuscripts promptly and the participants for their excellent contribution during the conference

Women's Health Topics

Science.gov (United States)

... Information by Audience For Women Women's Health Topics Women's Health Topics Share Tweet Linkedin Pin it More sharing options Linkedin Pin it Email Print National Women's Health Week May 13 - 19, 2018 Join us ...

Eigenspace-based fuzzy c-means for sensing trending topics in Twitter

Science.gov (United States)

Muliawati, T.; Murfi, H.

2017-07-01

As the information and communication technology are developed, the fulfillment of information can be obtained through social media, like Twitter. The enormous number of internet users has triggered fast and large data flow, thus making the manual analysis is difficult or even impossible. An automated methods for data analysis is needed, one of which is the topic detection and tracking. An alternative method other than latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is a soft clustering approach using Fuzzy C-Means (FCM). FCM meets the assumption that a document may consist of several topics. However, FCM works well in low-dimensional data but fails in high-dimensional data. Therefore, we propose an approach where FCM works on low-dimensional data by reducing the data using singular value decomposition (SVD). Our simulations show that this approach gives better accuracies in term of topic recall than LDA for sensing trending topic in Twitter about an event.

A Study on remote sensing method for drawing up and utilizing ecological and natural map - concentrated on drawing up of Land Cover Classification Map

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jun, Sung Woo; Chung, Sung Moon [Korea Environment Institute, Seoul (Korea)

1998-12-01

The drawing up of ecological and natural map, which is highly efficient using remote exploration method, was promoted in this study. As the first step of drawing up of ecological and natural map, this study is working on the drawing up of Land Cover using as a base map. Through the detailed and sufficient consideration on GAP analysis of USA, CORINE project of EU, and examples in Korea, it studied and proposed the Land Cover Classification system and method suitable for Korea. It will be helpful to draw up ecological and natural map by providing two strategies and principles for land cover classification. 26 refs., 33 figs., 9 tabs.

Influence of cover defects on the attenuation of radon with earthen covers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalkwarf, D.R.; Mayer, D.W.

1983-11-01

Experimental and theoretical evaluations of radon flux through laboratory-scale defective soil columns are presented together with a survey of literature on the formation and prevention of defects in soil covers. This report focuses on air-filled, centimeter-scale defects that are most probable in earthen covers for attenuating radon emission from uranium-mill tailings. Examples include shirnkage and erosion cracks, erosion piping, animal burrows and air channels formed by the biodegradation of vegetation roots. Calculations based on mathematical models indicate that collections of defects which could increase the radon flux from an earthen cover by a factor of two would be easily detected by visual inspection. However, these models ignore air-turbulence in the defect and drying of the soil around the defect. Laboratory measurements showed that turbulent diffusion of radon occurred through defects as narrow as 0.3 cm when subjected to a transverse air velocity of 1 to 6 miles per hour at the surface. Both turbulence and more-rapid drying of soil can accelerate radon flux to the cover surface. Consequently, recommended methods to inhibit defect formation should be applied. 29 references, 3 figures, 5 tables

Minimum Covers of Fixed Cardinality in Weighted Graphs.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Lee J.

Reported is the result of research on combinatorial and algorithmic techniques for information processing. A method is discussed for obtaining minimum covers of specified cardinality from a given weighted graph. By the indicated method, it is shown that the family of minimum covers of varying cardinality is related to the minimum spanning tree of…

Accounting rigid support at the border in a mixed model the finite element method in problems of ice cover destruction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. V. Knyazkov

2014-01-01

Full Text Available To evaluate the force to damage the ice covers is necessary for estimation of icebreaking capability of vessels, as well as of hull strength of icebreakers, and navigation of ships in ice conditions. On the other hand, the use of ice cover support to arrange construction works from the ice is also of practical interest.By the present moment a great deal of investigations of ice cover deformation have been carried out to result, usually, in approximate calculations formula which was obtained after making a variety of assumptions. Nevertheless, we believe that it is possible to make further improvement in calculations. Application numerical methods, and, for example, FEM, makes possible to avoid numerous drawbacks of analytical methods dealing with both complex boundaries and load application areas and other problem peculiarities.The article considers an application of mixed models of FEM for investigating ice cover deformation. A simple flexible triangle element of mixed type was taken to solve this problem. Vector of generalized coordinates of the element contains apices flexures and normal bending moments in the middle of its sides. Compared to other elements mixed models easily satisfy compatibility requirements on the boundary of adjacent elements and do not require numerical displacement differentiation to define bending moments, because bending moments are included in vector of element generalized coordinates.The method of account of rigid support plate is proposed. The resulting ratio, taking into account the "stiffening", reduces the number of resolving systems of equations by the number of elements on the plate contour.To evaluate further the results the numerical realization of ice cover stress-strained problem it becomes necessary and correct to check whether calculation results correspond to accurate solution. Using an example of circular plate the convergence of numerical solutions to analytical solutions is showed.The article

International Conference Nuclear Energy in Central Europe 99, V. 2. Proceedings. Embedded Meeting Neutron Imaging Methods to Detect Defects in Materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gortnar, O.; Stritar, A.

1999-01-01

International Conference Nuclear Energy in Central Europe is an annual meeting of the Nuclear Society of Slovenia. The second book of proceedings contain 14 articles from Slovenia, surrounding countries and countries of the Central and Eastern European Region. Topics cover Neutron Imaging Methods

Assessment of dynamic probabilistic methods for mapping snow cover in Québec Canada

Science.gov (United States)

De Seve, D.; Perreault, L.; Vachon, F.; Guay, F.; choquette, Y.

2012-04-01

Hydro-Quebec is the leader in electricity production in North America and uses hydraulic resources to generate 97% of its overall production where snow represents 30% of its annual energy reserve. Information on snow cover extent (SC) and snow water equivalent (SWE) is crucial for hydrological forecasting, particularly in Nordic regions where a majority of total precipitations falls as snow. Accurate estimation of the spatial distribution of snow cover variables is required to measure the extent of this resource but snow surveys are expensive due to inaccessibility factors and to the large extent nature of the Quebec geography. Consequently, the follow-up of snowmelt is particularly challenging for operational forecasting resulting in the need to develop a new approach to assist forecasters. For improved understanding of the dynamics of snow melting over watersheds and to generate optimized power production, Hydro-Québec's Research Institute (IREQ) has developed expertise in in-situ, remote sensing monitoring and statistical treatment of such data. The main goal of this Hydro-Quebec project is to develop an automatic and dynamic snow mapping system providing a daily snow map by merging remote sensing (AVHRR and SSMI) and in situ data. This paper focuses on the work accomplished on passive microwave SSM/I data to follow up snow cover. In our problematic, it is highly useful to classify snow, more specifically during the snowmelt period. The challenge is to be able to discriminate ground from wet snow as it will react as a black body, therefore, adding noise to global brightness temperature. Two dynamic snow classifiers were developed and tested. For this purpose, channels at 19 and 37 GHz in vertical polarization have been used to feed each model. SWE values from gamma ray in situ stations (GMON) and data snow depth from ultrasonic sensor (SR50) were used to validate the output models. The first algorithm is based on a standard K-mean clustering approach, combined

Tactile friction of topical formulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Skedung, L; Buraczewska-Norin, I; Dawood, N; Rutland, M W; Ringstad, L

2016-02-01

The tactile perception is essential for all types of topical formulations (cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical device) and the possibility to predict the sensorial response by using instrumental methods instead of sensory testing would save time and cost at an early stage product development. Here, we report on an instrumental evaluation method using tactile friction measurements to estimate perceptual attributes of topical formulations. Friction was measured between an index finger and an artificial skin substrate after application of formulations using a force sensor. Both model formulations of liquid crystalline phase structures with significantly different tactile properties, as well as commercial pharmaceutical moisturizing creams being more tactile-similar, were investigated. Friction coefficients were calculated as the ratio of the friction force to the applied load. The structures of the model formulations and phase transitions as a result of water evaporation were identified using optical microscopy. The friction device could distinguish friction coefficients between the phase structures, as well as the commercial creams after spreading and absorption into the substrate. In addition, phase transitions resulting in alterations in the feel of the formulations could be detected. A correlation was established between skin hydration and friction coefficient, where hydrated skin gave rise to higher friction. Also a link between skin smoothening and finger friction was established for the commercial moisturizing creams, although further investigations are needed to analyse this and correlations with other sensorial attributes in more detail. The present investigation shows that tactile friction measurements have potential as an alternative or complement in the evaluation of perception of topical formulations. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Novel Method for Detection and Classification of Covered Conductor Faults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stanislav Misak

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Medium-Voltage (MV overhead lines with Covered Conductors (CCs are increasingly being used around the world primarily in forested or dissected terrain areas or in urban areas where it is not possible to utilize MV cable lines. The CC is specific in high operational reliability provided by the conductor core insulation compared to Aluminium-Conductor Steel-Reinforced (ACSR overhead lines. The only disadvantage of the CC is rather the problematic detection of faults compared to the ACSR. In this work, we consider the following faults: the contact of a tree branch with a CC and the fall of a conductor on the ground. The standard protection relays are unable to detect the faults and so the faults pose a risk for individuals in the vicinity of the conductor as well as it compromises the overall safety and reliability of the MV distribution system. In this article, we continue with our previous work aimed at the method enabling detection of the faults and we introduce a method enabling a classification of the fault type. Such a classification is especially important for an operator of an MV distribution system to plan the optimal maintenance or repair the faulty conductors since the fall of a tree branch can be solved later whereas the breakdown of a conductor means an immediate action of the operator.

Topics in the generalized vector dominance model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chavin, S.

1976-01-01

Two topics are covered in the generalized vector dominance model. In the first topic a model is constructed for dilepton production in hadron-hadron interactions based on the idea of generalized vector-dominance. It is argued that in the high mass region the generalized vector-dominance model and the Drell-Yan parton model are alternative descriptions of the same underlying physics. In the low mass regions the models differ; the vector-dominance approach predicts a greater production of dileptons. It is found that the high mass vector mesons which are the hallmark of the generalized vector-dominance model make little contribution to the large yield of leptons observed in the transverse-momentum range 1 less than p/sub perpendicular/ less than 6 GeV. The recently measured hadronic parameters lead one to believe that detailed fits to the data are possible under the model. The possibility was expected, and illustrated with a simple model the extreme sensitivity of the large-p/sub perpendicular/ lepton yield to the large-transverse-momentum tail of vector-meson production. The second topic is an attempt to explain the mysterious phenomenon of photon shadowing in nuclei utilizing the contribution of the longitudinally polarized photon. It is argued that if the scalar photon anti-shadows, it could compensate for the transverse photon, which is presumed to shadow. It is found in a very simple model that the scalar photon could indeed anti-shadow. The principal feature of the model is a cancellation of amplitudes. The scheme is consistent with scalar photon-nucleon data as well. The idea is tested with two simple GVDM models and finds that the anti-shadowing contribution of the scalar photon is not sufficient to compensate for the contribution of the transverse photon. It is found doubtful that the scalar photon makes a significant contribution to the total photon-nuclear cross section

Atom probe field ion microscopy and related topics: A bibliography 1993

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Godfrey, R.D.; Miller, M.K.; Russell, K.F.

1994-10-01

This bibliography, covering the period 1993, includes references related to the following topics: atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM), field emission (FE), and field ion microscopy (FIM). Technique-oriented studies and applications are included. The references contained in this document were compiled from a variety of sources including computer searches and personal lists of publications. To reduce the length of this document, the references have been reduced to the minimum necessary to locate the articles. The references are listed alphabetically by authors, an Addendum of references missed in previous bibliographies is included.

Atom probe field ion microscopy and related topics: A bibliography 1993

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Godfrey, R.D.; Miller, M.K.; Russell, K.F.

1994-10-01

This bibliography, covering the period 1993, includes references related to the following topics: atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM), field emission (FE), and field ion microscopy (FIM). Technique-oriented studies and applications are included. The references contained in this document were compiled from a variety of sources including computer searches and personal lists of publications. To reduce the length of this document, the references have been reduced to the minimum necessary to locate the articles. The references are listed alphabetically by authors, an Addendum of references missed in previous bibliographies is included

Cover gases in nuclear reactors with special reference to argon

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jose, C.J.; Shah, G.C.; Prabhu, L.H.; Vartak, D.G.

1975-01-01

The report describes the specifications of an ideal cover gas for the smooth operation of a nuclear reactor. The advantages of using helium as cover gas, the sources of impurities in helium cover gas and the methods of purification of helium are given in detail. Various problems associated with the use of argon as cover gas and methods to purify and decontaminate argon cover gas are discussed on the basis of experimental data collected. A laboratory model of the system which can be used to evaluate the performance of the gas purification adsorbents is also described. (author)

The Regional Land Cover Monitoring System: Building regional capacity through innovative land cover mapping approaches

Science.gov (United States)

Saah, D.; Tenneson, K.; Hanh, Q. N.; Aekakkararungroj, A.; Aung, K. S.; Goldstein, J.; Cutter, P. G.; Maus, P.; Markert, K. N.; Anderson, E.; Ellenburg, W. L.; Ate, P.; Flores Cordova, A. I.; Vadrevu, K.; Potapov, P.; Phongsapan, K.; Chishtie, F.; Clinton, N.; Ganz, D.

2017-12-01

Earth observation and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, products, and services are vital to support the environmental decision making by governmental institutions, non-governmental agencies, and the general public. At the heart of environmental decision making is the monitoring land cover and land use change (LCLUC) for land resource planning and for ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation and resilience to climate change. A major challenge for monitoring LCLUC in developing regions, such as Southeast Asia, is inconsistent data products at inconsistent intervals that have different typologies across the region and are typically made in without stakeholder engagement or input. Here we present the Regional Land Cover Monitoring System (RLCMS), a novel land cover mapping effort for Southeast Asia, implemented by SERVIR-Mekong, a joint NASA-USAID initiative that brings Earth observations to improve environmental decision making in developing countries. The RLCMS focuses on mapping biophysical variables (e.g. canopy cover, tree height, or percent surface water) at an annual interval and in turn using those biophysical variables to develop land cover maps based on stakeholder definitions of land cover classes. This allows for flexible and consistent land cover classifications that can meet the needs of different institutions across the region. Another component of the RLCMS production is the stake-holder engagement through co-development. Institutions that directly benefit from this system have helped drive the development for regional needs leading to services for their specific uses. Examples of services for regional stakeholders include using the RLCMS to develop maps using the IPCC classification scheme for GHG emission reporting and developing custom annual maps as an input to hydrologic modeling/flood forecasting systems. In addition to the implementation of this system and the service stemming from the RLCMS in Southeast Asia, it is

Decomposition methods for unsupervised learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mørup, Morten

2008-01-01

This thesis presents the application and development of decomposition methods for Unsupervised Learning. It covers topics from classical factor analysis based decomposition and its variants such as Independent Component Analysis, Non-negative Matrix Factorization and Sparse Coding...... methods and clustering problems is derived both in terms of classical point clustering but also in terms of community detection in complex networks. A guiding principle throughout this thesis is the principle of parsimony. Hence, the goal of Unsupervised Learning is here posed as striving for simplicity...... in the decompositions. Thus, it is demonstrated how a wide range of decomposition methods explicitly or implicitly strive to attain this goal. Applications of the derived decompositions are given ranging from multi-media analysis of image and sound data, analysis of biomedical data such as electroencephalography...

Numerical simulation methods for electron and ion optics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Munro, Eric

2011-01-01

This paper summarizes currently used techniques for simulation and computer-aided design in electron and ion beam optics. Topics covered include: field computation, methods for computing optical properties (including Paraxial Rays and Aberration Integrals, Differential Algebra and Direct Ray Tracing), simulation of Coulomb interactions, space charge effects in electron and ion sources, tolerancing, wave optical simulations and optimization. Simulation examples are presented for multipole aberration correctors, Wien filter monochromators, imaging energy filters, magnetic prisms, general curved axis systems and electron mirrors.

Analysis and application of opinion model with multiple topic interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Fei; Liu, Yun; Wang, Liang; Wang, Ximeng

2017-08-01

To reveal heterogeneous behaviors of opinion evolution in different scenarios, we propose an opinion model with topic interactions. Individual opinions and topic features are represented by a multidimensional vector. We measure an agent's action towards a specific topic by the product of opinion and topic feature. When pairs of agents interact for a topic, their actions are introduced to opinion updates with bounded confidence. Simulation results show that a transition from a disordered state to a consensus state occurs at a critical point of the tolerance threshold, which depends on the opinion dimension. The critical point increases as the dimension of opinions increases. Multiple topics promote opinion interactions and lead to the formation of macroscopic opinion clusters. In addition, more topics accelerate the evolutionary process and weaken the effect of network topology. We use two sets of large-scale real data to evaluate the model, and the results prove its effectiveness in characterizing a real evolutionary process. Our model achieves high performance in individual action prediction and even outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Meanwhile, our model has much smaller computational complexity. This paper provides a demonstration for possible practical applications of theoretical opinion dynamics.

Topical Session on the Decommissioning and Dismantling Safety Case

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-01-01

practices is low, the idea being that it is important to understand differences in approaches. Frances Taylor, Head of Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning Strategy Unit, HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Health and Safety Executive, served as Session Chair. Scott Moore, Section Chief of the Special Projects section, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, served as the Rapporteur for the Topical Session. Presentations during the topical session covered key aspects of the safety case, including: - international requirements and guidance, - environmental impact assessment, - plant configuration and decommissioning and dismantling (D and D) licensing, - accident assessment, - balancing radiological and industrial risk, and - the safety case for safe store and dormancy periods. At the end of each presentation time was allotted for discussion of the paper. Integral to the Topical Session was a facilitated plenary discussion on the topical issues identified above. The Rapporteur briefly reviewed the main points at the end of the topical session. The Topical Session is documented as follows. First a summary of the presentations is given along with the questions that were asked of each speaker; then follow a summary of the plenary discussions and the main points made. The extended abstracts or full papers supporting each presentation are given in Appendix 1. As a follow-on to the Topical Session a Task Group has been constituted in order to propose to the WPDD a more detailed work programme in this area

Exploiting the functional and taxonomic structure of genomic data by probabilistic topic modeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xin; Hu, Xiaohua; Lim, Tze Y; Shen, Xiajiong; Park, E K; Rosen, Gail L

2012-01-01

In this paper, we present a method that enable both homology-based approach and composition-based approach to further study the functional core (i.e., microbial core and gene core, correspondingly). In the proposed method, the identification of major functionality groups is achieved by generative topic modeling, which is able to extract useful information from unlabeled data. We first show that generative topic model can be used to model the taxon abundance information obtained by homology-based approach and study the microbial core. The model considers each sample as a “document,” which has a mixture of functional groups, while each functional group (also known as a “latent topic”) is a weight mixture of species. Therefore, estimating the generative topic model for taxon abundance data will uncover the distribution over latent functions (latent topic) in each sample. Second, we show that, generative topic model can also be used to study the genome-level composition of “N-mer” features (DNA subreads obtained by composition-based approaches). The model consider each genome as a mixture of latten genetic patterns (latent topics), while each functional pattern is a weighted mixture of the “N-mer” features, thus the existence of core genomes can be indicated by a set of common N-mer features. After studying the mutual information between latent topics and gene regions, we provide an explanation of the functional roles of uncovered latten genetic patterns. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method.

Topics in nonlinear wave theory with applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tracy, E.R.

1984-01-01

Selected topics in nonlinear wave theory are discussed, and applications to the study of modulational instabilities are presented. A historical survey is given of topics relating to solitons and modulational problems. A method is then presented for generating exact periodic and quasi-periodic solutions to several nonlinear wave equations, which have important physical applications. The method is then specialized for the purposes of studying the modulational instability of a plane wave solution of the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, an equation with general applicability in one-dimensional modulational problems. Some numerical results obtained in conjunction with the analytic study are presented. The analytic approach explains the recurrence phenomena seen in the numerical studies, and the numerical work of other authors. The method of solution (related to the inverse scattering method) is then analyzed within the context of Hamiltonian dynamics where it is shown that the method can be viewed as simply a pair of canonical transformations. The Abel Transformation, which appears here and in the work of other authors, is shown to be a special form of Liouville's transformation to action-angle variables. The construction of closed form solutions of these nonlinear wave equations, via the solution of Jacobi's inversion problem, is surveyed briefly

Topic Visualization and Survival Analysis

OpenAIRE

Wang, Ping Jr

2017-01-01

Latent semantic structure in a text collection is called a topic. In this thesis, we aim to visualize topics in the scientific literature and detect active or inactive research areas based on their lifetime. Topics were extracted from over 1 million abstracts from the arXiv.org database using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Hellinger distance measures similarity between two topics. Topics are determined to be relevant if their pairwise distances are smaller than the threshold of Hellinger ...

Topical erythropoietin promotes wound repair in diabetic rats.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamed, Saher; Ullmann, Yehuda; Masoud, Muhannad; Hellou, Elias; Khamaysi, Ziad; Teot, Luc

2010-01-01

Wound healing in diabetic patients is slower than in healthy individuals. Erythropoietin (EPO) has non-hemopoietic targets in the skin, and systemically administered EPO promotes wound healing in experimental animals. This study investigated the effect of topical EPO treatment on defective wound repair in the skin of diabetic rats. Full-thickness excisional skin wounds were made in 38 rats, of which 30 had diabetes. The wounds were then treated topically with a cream that contained either vehicle, 600 IU ml(-1) EPO (low dose), or 3,000 IU ml(-1) (high dose) EPO. We assessed the rate of wound closure during the 12-day treatment period, and microvascular density (MVD), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and hydroxyproline (HP) contents, and the extent of apoptosis in wound tissues at the end of the 12-day treatment period. Topical EPO treatment significantly reduced the time to final wound closure. This increased rate of closure of the two EPO-treated wounds in diabetic rats was associated with increased MVD, VEGF, and HP contents, and a reduced extent of apoptosis. In light of our finding that topical EPO treatment promotes skin wound repair in diabetic rats, we propose that topical EPO treatment is a therapeutically beneficial method of treating chronic diabetic wounds.

Towards Interactive Construction of Topical Hierarchy: A Recursive Tensor Decomposition Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chi; Liu, Xueqing; Song, Yanglei; Han, Jiawei

2015-08-01

Automatic construction of user-desired topical hierarchies over large volumes of text data is a highly desirable but challenging task. This study proposes to give users freedom to construct topical hierarchies via interactive operations such as expanding a branch and merging several branches. Existing hierarchical topic modeling techniques are inadequate for this purpose because (1) they cannot consistently preserve the topics when the hierarchy structure is modified; and (2) the slow inference prevents swift response to user requests. In this study, we propose a novel method, called STROD, that allows efficient and consistent modification of topic hierarchies, based on a recursive generative model and a scalable tensor decomposition inference algorithm with theoretical performance guarantee. Empirical evaluation shows that STROD reduces the runtime of construction by several orders of magnitude, while generating consistent and quality hierarchies.

Tundish Cover Flux Thickness Measurement Method and Instrumentation Based on Computer Vision in Continuous Casting Tundish

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meng Lu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Thickness of tundish cover flux (TCF plays an important role in continuous casting (CC steelmaking process. Traditional measurement method of TCF thickness is single/double wire methods, which have several problems such as personal security, easily affected by operators, and poor repeatability. To solve all these problems, in this paper, we specifically designed and built an instrumentation and presented a novel method to measure the TCF thickness. The instrumentation was composed of a measurement bar, a mechanical device, a high-definition industrial camera, a Siemens S7-200 programmable logic controller (PLC, and a computer. Our measurement method was based on the computer vision algorithms, including image denoising method, monocular range measurement method, scale invariant feature transform (SIFT, and image gray gradient detection method. Using the present instrumentation and method, images in the CC tundish can be collected by camera and transferred to computer to do imaging processing. Experiments showed that our instrumentation and method worked well at scene of steel plants, can accurately measure the thickness of TCF, and overcome the disadvantages of traditional measurement methods, or even replace the traditional ones.

Topical phenytoin for treating pressure ulcers.

Science.gov (United States)

Hao, Xiang Yong; Li, Hong Ling; Su, He; Cai, Hui; Guo, Tian Kang; Liu, Ruifeng; Jiang, Lei; Shen, Yan Fei

2017-02-22

Pressure ulcers are common in clinical practice and pose a significant health problem worldwide. Apart from causing suffering to patients, they also result in longer hospital stays and increase the cost of health care. A variety of methods are used for treating pressure ulcers, including pressure relief, patient repositioning, biophysical strategies, nutritional supplementation, debridement, topical negative pressure, and local treatments including dressings, ointments and creams such as bacitracin, silver sulphadiazine, neomycin, and phenytoin. Phenytoin is a drug more commonly used in the treatment of epilepsy, but may play an important role in accelerating ulcer healing. To assess the effects of topical phenytoin on the rate of healing of pressure ulcers of any grade, in any care setting. In September 2016, we searched the following electronic databases to identify relevant randomized clinical trials: the Cochrane Wounds Specialised Register; the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; the Cochrane Library); Ovid MEDLINE; Ovid Embase; and EBSCO CINAHL Plus. We handsearched conference proceedings from the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, European Wound Management Association and the Tissue Viability Society for all available years. We searched the references of the retrieved trials to identify further relevant trials. We also searched clinical trials registries to identify ongoing and unpublished studies. There were no restrictions with respect to language, date of publication or study setting. We included all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) addressing the effects (both benefits and harms) of topical phenytoin on the healing of pressure ulcers of any grade compared with placebo or alternative treatments or no therapy, irrespective of blinding, language, and publication status. Two review authors independently selected studies, extracted information on participants, interventions, methods and results and assessed risk of bias using

47{sup th} Annual meeting on nuclear technology (AMNT 2016). Key Topics / Enhanced safety and operation excellence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bohnstedt, Angelika [Karlsruher Institut fuer Technologie (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (Germany). Programm Nukleare Entsorgung, Sicherheit und Strahlenforschung (NUSAFE); Baumann, Erik [AREVA GmbH, Erlangen (Germany). Radiation Protection

2016-12-15

Summary report on the Key Topic 'Enhanced Safety and Operation Excellence' Focus Session 'Radiation Protection' of the 47{sup th} Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology (AMNT 2016) held in Hamburg, 10 to 12 May 2016. Other Sessions of AMNT 2016 have been and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Vacuum-plasma coverings on the aircraft

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shvetsov, V.D.; Teksin, Eh.K.; Lysyak, A.A.

1998-01-01

In the article are considered the perspectives of vacuum-plasma coverings using for engine components protection. The influence of operating factors on the durability of components which has the vacuum-plasma coverings is show.Leads in using the concept of informational parameter of quality.The recommendation about organization of engine with abolished components maintenance by methods of flyable conditions or reliability level are given

Supporting inter-topic entity search for biomedical Linked Data based on heterogeneous relationships.

Science.gov (United States)

Zong, Nansu; Lee, Sungin; Ahn, Jinhyun; Kim, Hong-Gee

2017-08-01

The keyword-based entity search restricts search space based on the preference of search. When given keywords and preferences are not related to the same biomedical topic, existing biomedical Linked Data search engines fail to deliver satisfactory results. This research aims to tackle this issue by supporting an inter-topic search-improving search with inputs, keywords and preferences, under different topics. This study developed an effective algorithm in which the relations between biomedical entities were used in tandem with a keyword-based entity search, Siren. The algorithm, PERank, which is an adaptation of Personalized PageRank (PPR), uses a pair of input: (1) search preferences, and (2) entities from a keyword-based entity search with a keyword query, to formalize the search results on-the-fly based on the index of the precomputed Individual Personalized PageRank Vectors (IPPVs). Our experiments were performed over ten linked life datasets for two query sets, one with keyword-preference topic correspondence (intra-topic search), and the other without (inter-topic search). The experiments showed that the proposed method achieved better search results, for example a 14% increase in precision for the inter-topic search than the baseline keyword-based search engine. The proposed method improved the keyword-based biomedical entity search by supporting the inter-topic search without affecting the intra-topic search based on the relations between different entities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Weeds Response to the Winter Vetch (Vicia villosa and Chicklingpea (Lathyrus sativus Cover Crops under Different Tillage Methods in Corn Fields

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javad Hamzei

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Using cover crops in conservation tillage systems offers many advantages, one of which is weed control through physical and chemical interferences. Most of the benefits of cover crops are well known. They prevent form wind and water erosions, conserve soil moisture by reducing evaporation and increasing infiltration, increase the content of organic matter, increase fertility by recycling nutrients, add nitrogen if they are legumes, and improve soil structure. Proper cover crops can also suppress weed growth by allelopathic activities and light interference. They impact on environmental quality through the protection of surface water and groundwater, as well as eliminating the need for using preemergence herbicides. Either increase or decreases have been reported for crop yields when the crop residues remain on soil surface. No-till system has been reported to increase the presence of certain difficult to control weeds. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of tillage systems and cover crops on weed control and corn yield. Materials and Methods: Experiment was carried out as split plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications at the Bu-Ali Sina University in growing season of 2011. Tillage with moldboard, tillage with chisel (minimum tillage, and no tillage were considered as main plots and two cover crops, winter vetch and chicklingpea, chemical weed control and weed-infest treatment (control were considered as sub-plots. Cover crops were cultivated in late March 2011. In early June 2011, cover crops were harvested and were spread over the soil surface. The Plot size was 22.50 m-2. Five rows were in each plot with 75 cm intervals among rows and 18 cm among seedlings. 2 square were picked in the three central rows of each plot in order to determine the yield and yield components. From each plot three quadrants (1×1 mrandomly were picked and weeds and cover crops was separated. All

Effect of Grafting Method, Graft Cover and Foliar Spray of some Mineral Elements on Persian Walnut Graft-take and Winter Survival Rate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reza Rezaee

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Persian walnut (Juglans regia L. is an important nut crop in Iran and many parts of the world. One of the major challenges of growing walnut is planting of non-grafted walnut trees in orchards, which leads to the reduction of yield, quality and productivity of walnut orchards. Compared to the other fruit trees, walnut grafting is difficult and even newly grafted walnut seedlings are vulnerable to fall or winter frost chilling, so that most of the seedlings are lost after subjecting to the cold winter. There are a few studies reporting successful grafting in outdoor conditions, however, final grafting take after winter has been usually ignored. Hence, increased walnut grafting success and improved tree growth after grafting through foliar nutrient application may lead to increased tolerance of chilling. Therefore, main goals of this research were to investigate the effect of some graft covers and role of foliar spray of calcium, boron and zinc on the reduction of frost damage in newly grafted seedlings under outdoor conditions. Materials and methods: This research was conducted at agricultural research station, Khoy city, west Azerbaijan province, during 2012-2014. In the first experiment, three methods of grafting including cleft, bark and V-shaped, and two kinds of graft covers including moist sawdust and superabsorbent plus cotton wool were investigated in terms of grafting success and quality of seedlings. In the second experiment, effect of the three above-mentioned grafting methods and two levels of foliar spray including sequential spray of Ca (4 ppm, B and Zn (2% (3 times during growth season and control (no spray were studied in terms of frost damage. The experiments conducted in factorial based on randomized complete block design with 10 trees in each plot. Data were collected 45 days after grafting take, final grafting take after one winter, subsequent scion growth length and diameter and concentration of Ca, B and Zn in

Urinary profile of methylprednisolone and its metabolites after oral and topical administrations.

Science.gov (United States)

Matabosch, Xavier; Pozo, Oscar J; Monfort, Núria; Pérez-Mañá, Clara; Farré, Magi; Marcos, Josep; Segura, Jordi; Ventura, Rosa

2013-11-01

Methylprednisolone (MP) is prohibited in sports competitions when administered by systemic routes; however its use by topical administration is allowed. Therefore, analytical approaches to distinguish between these different administration pathways are required. A reporting level of 30ng/mL was established for this purpose. However, the suitability of that reporting level for MP is not known. In the present work, excretion profiles of MP and different metabolites after oral and topical administrations have been compared. A method for the quantification of MP and the qualitative detection of fifteen previously reported metabolites has been validated. The method involved an enzymatic hydrolysis, liquid-liquid extraction and analysis by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. The method was found to be linear, selective, precise and accurate. The high sensitivity (limit of detection 0.1ng/mL) and linear range (0.1-250ng/mL) achieved allowed for the quantification of MP at both the low concentrations present after topical administration and the high concentrations detected after oral intake. The method was applied to samples collected after oral (4 or 40mg) and topical administration (10mg of MP aceponate/day for 5 consecutive days) to healthy volunteers. After oral administration, MP and all metabolites were detected in urines collected up to at least 36h. Only MP and five metabolites were detected in samples obtained after topical treatment. As expected, concentrations of MP after topical administration were well below current reporting level (30ng/mL), however 3 out of 4 samples in range 8-24h after the low oral dose (4mg) were also below that concentration. Taking into account metabolites detected after both administration routes, metabolites 16β,17α,21-trihydroxy-6α-methylpregna-1,4-diene-3,11,20-trione (M8) and 17α,20α,21-trihydroxy-6α-methylpregna-1,4-diene-3,11-dione (M11) are best markers to differentiate between topical and oral

Simplified computational methods for elastic and elastic-plastic fracture problems

Science.gov (United States)

Atluri, Satya N.

1992-01-01

An overview is given of some of the recent (1984-1991) developments in computational/analytical methods in the mechanics of fractures. Topics covered include analytical solutions for elliptical or circular cracks embedded in isotropic or transversely isotropic solids, with crack faces being subjected to arbitrary tractions; finite element or boundary element alternating methods for two or three dimensional crack problems; a 'direct stiffness' method for stiffened panels with flexible fasteners and with multiple cracks; multiple site damage near a row of fastener holes; an analysis of cracks with bonded repair patches; methods for the generation of weight functions for two and three dimensional crack problems; and domain-integral methods for elastic-plastic or inelastic crack mechanics.

Weed infestation of spring common wheat (Triticum aestivum L. grown in monoculture depending on the cover crop and weed control method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dorota Gawęda

2012-10-01

Full Text Available The aim of this 3-year field study was to evaluate the effect of some stubble crops and in-crop weed control methods on the species composition, number and air-dry weight of weeds in a wheat crop grown in short-term monoculture. The study was conducted in the period 2009-2011 in the Uhrusk Experimental Farm on mixed rendzina soil classified as very good rye soil complex. It included various types of stubble crops ploughed in each year (control treatment without cover crop, white mustard, lacy phacelia, a mixture of legumes – narrow-leaf lupin + field pea and methods of weed control in spring wheat (mechanical, mechanical and chemical, chemical weed control. On average during the study period, all stubble crops used reduced the air-dry weight of weds in the treatments with mechanical weed management relative to the control treatment. Irrespective of the weed control method, the number of weeds in the wheat crop was significantly lower only after the ploughing in of white mustard. Mechanical weed management proved to be less effective in reducing the number and dry weight of weeds compared to other weed control methods. The white mustard and legume mixture cover crops had a reducing effect on the number of weed species in relation to the treatment without cover crops. The highest floristic diversity of weed communities was found in the spring wheat crop in which only mechanical weeding alone was used.

Estimating pinyon and juniper cover across Utah using NAIP imagery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Darrell B. Roundy

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Expansion of Pinus L. (pinyon and Juniperus L. (juniper (P-J trees into sagebrush (Artemisia L. steppe communities can lead to negative effects on hydrology, loss of wildlife habitat, and a decrease in desirable understory vegetation. Tree reduction treatments are often implemented to mitigate these negative effects. In order to prioritize and effectively plan these treatments, rapid, accurate, and inexpensive methods are needed to estimate tree canopy cover at the landscape scale. We used object based image analysis (OBIA software (Feature AnalystTM for ArcMap 10.1®, ENVI Feature Extraction®, and Trimble eCognition Developer 8.2® to extract tree canopy cover using NAIP (National Agricultural Imagery Program imagery. We then compared our extractions with ground measured tree canopy cover (crown diameter and line point intercept on 309 plots across 44 sites in Utah. Extraction methods did not consistently over- or under-estimate ground measured P-J canopy cover except where tree cover was >45%. Estimates of tree canopy cover using OBIA techniques were strongly correlated with estimates using the crown diameter method (r = 0.93 for ENVI, 0.91 for Feature AnalystTM, and 0.92 for eCognition. Tree cover estimates using OBIA techniques had lower correlations with tree cover measurements using the line-point intercept method (r = 0.85 for ENVI, 0.83 for Feature AnalystTM, and 0.83 for eCognition. All software packages accurately and inexpensively extracted P-J canopy cover from NAIP imagery when the imagery was not blurred, and when P-J cover was not mixed with Amelanchier alnifolia (Utah serviceberry and Quercus gambelii (Gambel’s oak, which had similar spectral values as P-J.

Topics in field theory

CERN Document Server

Karpilovsky, G

1989-01-01

This monograph gives a systematic account of certain important topics pertaining to field theory, including the central ideas, basic results and fundamental methods.Avoiding excessive technical detail, the book is intended for the student who has completed the equivalent of a standard first-year graduate algebra course. Thus it is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic ring-theoretic and group-theoretic concepts. A chapter on algebraic preliminaries is included, as well as a fairly large bibliography of works which are either directly relevant to the text or offer supplementary material of interest.

Meatotomy using topical anesthesia: A painless option

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vinod Priyadarshi

2015-01-01

Conclusion: Use of topical anesthesia in form of Prilox (EMLA cream for meatotomy is safe and effective method that avoids painful injections and anxiety related to it and should be considered in most of such patients as an alternative of conventional penile blocks or general anesthesia.

Special study on vegetative covers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1988-11-01

This report describes the findings of a special study on the use of vegetative covers to stabilize tailings piles for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project. The principal rationale for using plants would be to establish a dynamic system for controlling water balance. Specifically, vegetation would be used to intercept and transpire precipitation to the atmosphere, rather than allowing water to drain into the tailings and mobilize contaminants. This would facilitate compliance with groundwater standards proposed for the UMTRA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency. The goals of the study were to evaluate the feasibility of using vegetative covers on UMTRA Project piles, define the advantages and disadvantages of vegetative covers, and develop general guidelines for their use when such use seems reasonable. The principal method for the study was to analyze and apply to the UMTRA Project the results of research programs on vegetative covers at other US Department of Energy (DOE) waste management facilities. The study also relied upon observations made of existing stabilized piles at UMTRA Project sites where natural vegetation is growing on the rock-covered surfaces. Water balance and erosion models were also used to quantify the long-term performance of vegetative covers planned for the topslopes of stabilized piles at Grand Junction and Durango, Colorado, two UMTRA Project sites where the decision was made during the course of this special study to use vegetative covers. Elements in the design and construction of the vegetative covers at these two sites are discussed in the report, with explanations of the differing features that reflect differing environmental conditions. 28 refs., 18 figs., 9 tabs

Multivariate statistical methods and data mining in particle physics (4/4)

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2008-01-01

The lectures will cover multivariate statistical methods and their applications in High Energy Physics. The methods will be viewed in the framework of a statistical test, as used e.g. to discriminate between signal and background events. Topics will include an introduction to the relevant statistical formalism, linear test variables, neural networks, probability density estimation (PDE) methods, kernel-based PDE, decision trees and support vector machines. The methods will be evaluated with respect to criteria relevant to HEP analyses such as statistical power, ease of computation and sensitivity to systematic effects. Simple computer examples that can be extended to more complex analyses will be presented.

Multivariate statistical methods and data mining in particle physics (2/4)

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2008-01-01

The lectures will cover multivariate statistical methods and their applications in High Energy Physics. The methods will be viewed in the framework of a statistical test, as used e.g. to discriminate between signal and background events. Topics will include an introduction to the relevant statistical formalism, linear test variables, neural networks, probability density estimation (PDE) methods, kernel-based PDE, decision trees and support vector machines. The methods will be evaluated with respect to criteria relevant to HEP analyses such as statistical power, ease of computation and sensitivity to systematic effects. Simple computer examples that can be extended to more complex analyses will be presented.

Multivariate statistical methods and data mining in particle physics (1/4)

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2008-01-01

The lectures will cover multivariate statistical methods and their applications in High Energy Physics. The methods will be viewed in the framework of a statistical test, as used e.g. to discriminate between signal and background events. Topics will include an introduction to the relevant statistical formalism, linear test variables, neural networks, probability density estimation (PDE) methods, kernel-based PDE, decision trees and support vector machines. The methods will be evaluated with respect to criteria relevant to HEP analyses such as statistical power, ease of computation and sensitivity to systematic effects. Simple computer examples that can be extended to more complex analyses will be presented.

Mathematical Methods in Survival Analysis, Reliability and Quality of Life

CERN Document Server

Huber, Catherine; Mesbah, Mounir

2008-01-01

Reliability and survival analysis are important applications of stochastic mathematics (probability, statistics and stochastic processes) that are usually covered separately in spite of the similarity of the involved mathematical theory. This title aims to redress this situation: it includes 21 chapters divided into four parts: Survival analysis, Reliability, Quality of life, and Related topics. Many of these chapters were presented at the European Seminar on Mathematical Methods for Survival Analysis, Reliability and Quality of Life in 2006.

Probabilistic topic modeling for the analysis and classification of genomic sequences

Science.gov (United States)

2015-01-01

Background Studies on genomic sequences for classification and taxonomic identification have a leading role in the biomedical field and in the analysis of biodiversity. These studies are focusing on the so-called barcode genes, representing a well defined region of the whole genome. Recently, alignment-free techniques are gaining more importance because they are able to overcome the drawbacks of sequence alignment techniques. In this paper a new alignment-free method for DNA sequences clustering and classification is proposed. The method is based on k-mers representation and text mining techniques. Methods The presented method is based on Probabilistic Topic Modeling, a statistical technique originally proposed for text documents. Probabilistic topic models are able to find in a document corpus the topics (recurrent themes) characterizing classes of documents. This technique, applied on DNA sequences representing the documents, exploits the frequency of fixed-length k-mers and builds a generative model for a training group of sequences. This generative model, obtained through the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm, is then used to classify a large set of genomic sequences. Results and conclusions We performed classification of over 7000 16S DNA barcode sequences taken from Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) repository, training probabilistic topic models. The proposed method is compared to the RDP tool and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification algorithm in a extensive set of trials using both complete sequences and short sequence snippets (from 400 bp to 25 bp). Our method reaches very similar results to RDP classifier and SVM for complete sequences. The most interesting results are obtained when short sequence snippets are considered. In these conditions the proposed method outperforms RDP and SVM with ultra short sequences and it exhibits a smooth decrease of performance, at every taxonomic level, when the sequence length is decreased. PMID:25916734

Health Topic XML File Description

Science.gov (United States)

... this page: https://medlineplus.gov/xmldescription.html Health Topic XML File Description: MedlinePlus To use the sharing ... information categories assigned. Example of a Full Health Topic Record A record for a MedlinePlus health topic ...

Advanced methods in diagnosis and therapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

This important meeting covers the following topics: use and optimization of monoclonal antibobies in oncology: - Tumor markers: Clinical follow-up of patients through tumor marker serum determinations. - Cancer and medical imaging: The use of monoclonal antibodies in immunoscintigraphy. - Immunoradiotherapy: Monoclonal antibodies as therapeutic vectors. Advanced methods in diagnosis: - Contribution of monoclonal antibodies in modern immunochemistry (RIA, EIA). - Interest of monoclonal antibody in immunohistochemical pathology diagnosis. - In vitro diagnosis future prospects: with receptors and oncogenes. - Immunofluoroassay: a new sensitive immunoanalytical procedure with broad applications. Recent advances in brachitherapy: - Interest of computer processing. Blood products irradiation: - Interest in transfusion and bone marrow transplantations [fr

Summary record of the topical session of 16. Meeting of the IGSC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Luik, Abe; Smith, Paul

2014-01-01

The sixteenth meeting of the Integration Group for the Safety case (IGSC) included a topical session titled: Handling extreme geological events in safety cases during the post-closure phase. The session included nine presentations on the handling of such events by various national programs, questions and answers on each presentation and ended with a general discussion period. The present document summarises the outcome of the meeting. The document is structured as follows: - Section 2 describes the types of extreme geological events discussed in the session and how these are identified, - Section 3 discusses the measures that can be taken to avoid such events and to mitigate their impact on repositories, - Section 4 describes how the likelihood and consequences of events are assessed, - Section 5 address experiences regarding interactions with regulators and other stakeholders, - Section 6 covers remaining issues and planned R and D to address these, and - Section 7 presents a recommendation for possible future collaborative work on this topic

Medical support of children’s sports: Topical problems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. A. Balykova

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses the most topical issues of medical support of children and adolescents engaged in physical exercises and sports. Much attention is paid to different views on the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and principles of therapy of pathological transformation of the heart in child athletes. The problem of sudden cardiac death in sports and the possibility of a relationship between connective tissue dysplasia and its development are touched upon. Electrocardiographic and morphological criteria for cardiac maladaptation in athletes are discussed. The problem of early and accessible diagnosis and Russia’s tactics for the diagnosis of health changes in athletes and approaches to their prevention and treatment are covered. Different ways to prevent the pathological transformation of the cardiovascular system in athletes and sudden cardiac death as its extreme manifestation are discussed.

Handbook of mathematical methods in imaging

CERN Document Server

2015-01-01

The Handbook of Mathematical Methods in Imaging provides a comprehensive treatment of the mathematical techniques used in imaging science. The material is grouped into two central themes, namely, Inverse Problems (Algorithmic Reconstruction) and Signal and Image Processing. Each section within the themes covers applications (modeling), mathematics, numerical methods (using a case example) and open questions. Written by experts in the area, the presentation is mathematically rigorous. This expanded and revised second edition contains updates to existing chapters and 16 additional entries on important mathematical methods such as graph cuts, morphology, discrete geometry, PDEs, conformal methods, to name a few. The entries are cross-referenced for easy navigation through connected topics. Available in both print and electronic forms, the handbook is enhanced by more than 200 illustrations and an extended bibliography. It will benefit students, scientists and researchers in applied mathematics. Engineers and com...

Estimation of snow cover distribution in Beas basin, Indian Himalaya ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

In the present paper, a methodology has been developed for the mapping of snow cover in Beas ... Different snow cover mapping methods using snow indices are compared to find the suitable ... cover are important factors for human activities,.

Scenarios of land cover in China

Science.gov (United States)

Yue, Tian Xiang; Fan, Ze Meng; Liu, Ji Yuan

2007-02-01

A method for surface modeling of land cover change (SMLC) is developed on the basis of establishing transition probability matrixes between land cover types and HLZ types. SMLC is used to simulate land cover scenarios of China for the years 2039, 2069 and 2099, for which HLZ scenarios are first simulated in terms of HadCM3 climatic scenarios that are downscaled in zonal model of spatial climate change in China. This paper also analyzes spatial distribution of land cover types, area change and mean center shift of each land cover type, ecotope diversity, and patch connectivity under the land cover scenarios. The results show that cultivated land would decrease and woodland would expand greatly with climatic change, which coincides with consequences expected by implementation of Grain-for-Green policy. Nival area would shrink, and desertification area would expand at a comparatively slow rate in future 100 years. Climate change would generally cause less ecotope diversity and more patch connectivity. Ecosystems in China would have a pattern of beneficial cycle after efficient ecological conservation and restoration. However, if human activities would exceed regulation capacity of ecosystems themselves, the ecosystems in China might deteriorate more seriously.

Land Cover - Minnesota Land Cover Classification System

Data.gov (United States)

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — Land cover data set based on the Minnesota Land Cover Classification System (MLCCS) coding scheme. This data was produced using a combination of aerial photograph...

The human heart and the circulatory system as an interesting interdisciplinary topic in lessons of physics and biology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Volná, M; Látal, F; Kubínek, R; Richterek, L

2014-01-01

Many topics which are closely related can be found in the national curriculum of the Czech Republic for physics and biology. One of them is the heart and the circulatory system in the human body. This topic was examined cross curriculum, a teaching module was created and the topic was chosen for our research. The task was to determine if the students of bachelor study are aware of connections between physics and biology within this topic and whether we can help them effectively to describe the corresponding physics phenomena in the human body connected, for example, with a heart attack or with the measurement of blood pressure. In this paper, the heart and the circulatory system are presented as suitable topics for an interdisciplinary teaching module which includes both theoretical and experimental parts. The module was evaluated by a group of first-year undergraduate students of physics at the Faculty of Science, Palacký University. The acquired knowledge was compared with another control group through a test. The highest efficiency of the module was evaluated on the basis of questions that covered the calculation problems. (paper)

Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

Science.gov (United States)

Yıldırım, Ahmet; Üsküdarlı, Suzan; Özgür, Arzucan

2016-01-01

Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s) the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision) and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

Topic Detection Based on Weak Tie Analysis: A Case Study of LIS Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ling Wei

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Based on the weak tie theory, this paper proposes a series of connection indicators of weak tie subnets and weak tie nodes to detect research topics, recognize their connections, and understand their evolution. Design/methodology/approach: First, keywords are extracted from article titles and preprocessed. Second, high-frequency keywords are selected to generate weak tie co-occurrence networks. By removing the internal lines of clustered sub-topic networks, we focus on the analysis of weak tie subnets' composition and functions and the weak tie nodes' roles. Findings: The research topics' clusters and themes changed yearly; the subnets clustered with technique-related and methodology-related topics have been the core, important subnets for years; while close subnets are highly independent, research topics are generally concentrated and most topics are application-related; the roles and functions of nodes and weak ties are diversified. Research limitations: The parameter values are somewhat inconsistent; the weak tie subnets and nodes are classified based on empirical observations, and the conclusions are not verified or compared to other methods. Practical implications: The research is valuable for detecting important research topics as well as their roles, interrelations, and evolution trends. Originality/value: To contribute to the strength of weak tie theory, the research translates weak and strong ties concepts to co-occurrence strength, and analyzes weak ties' functions. Also, the research proposes a quantitative method to classify and measure the topics' clusters and nodes.

Recent Topical Research on Global, Energy, Health & Medical, and Tourism Economics, and Global Software

OpenAIRE

Chang, Chia-Lin; McAleer, Michael

2017-01-01

textabstractThe paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted “global” in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on economics, thereby making it “global economics”. In this sense, the paper is concerned with papers on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, as well as global software algorithms that have...

Regulatory Information By Topic

Science.gov (United States)

EPA develops and enforces regulations that span many environmental topics, from acid rain reduction to wetlands restoration. Each topic listed below may include related laws and regulations, compliance enforcement information, policies guidance

Protective effect of topical antibiotics in breast augmentation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pfeiffer, Philip; Jørgensen, Signe; Kristiansen, Thomas B

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: Previous studies indicate that antibacterial lavage and/or use of topical antibiotics may reduce infection in breast implant surgery and perhaps also reduce occurrence of capsular contracture. A retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate this effect. METHODS: The study participa...

Current status of topical antiretroviral chemoprophylaxis.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Damme, Lut; Szpir, Michael

2012-11-01

Recent studies suggest that the vaginal delivery of antiretroviral (ARV) agents - such as tenofovir, dapivirine and UC781 - may be a promising way to reduce the high rates of HIV infection among women in developing countries. This review examines these developments. The Microbicide Trials Network 003 study, a large phase IIb trial, was unable to show that daily dosing with 1% tenofovir vaginal gel was effective for HIV prevention. Nevertheless, preclinical and early-phase clinical trials suggest that ARV drugs - formulated in vaginal gels, rings, films, tablets and diaphragms - could be effective for HIV chemoprophylaxis. Investigations of topical chemoprophylaxis methods have seen mixed results in the past 12-18 months. Product adherence may prove to be one of the field's greatest challenges. Phase II and III trials continue to explore different dosing strategies for topical products that contain one or more ARV agents.

Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmet Yıldırım

Full Text Available Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA, propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

Investigating Online Destination Images Using a Topic-Based Sentiment Analysis Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gang Ren

2017-09-01

Full Text Available With the development of Web 2.0, many studies have tried to analyze tourist behavior utilizing user-generated contents. The primary purpose of this study is to propose a topic-based sentiment analysis approach, including a polarity classification and an emotion classification. We use the Latent Dirichlet Allocation model to extract topics from online travel review data and analyze the sentiments and emotions for each topic with our proposed approach. The top frequent words are extracted for each topic from online reviews on Ctrip.com. By comparing the relative importance of each topic, we conclude that many tourists prefer to provide “suggestion” reviews. In particular, we propose a new approach to classify the emotions of online reviews at the topic level utilizing an emotion lexicon, focusing on specific emotions to analyze customer complaints. The results reveal that attraction “management” obtains most complaints. These findings may provide useful insights for the development of attractions and the measurement of online destination image. Our proposed method can be used to analyze reviews from many online platforms and domains.

Topical therapy for facial allergic dermatoses

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Y. S. Kondratyeva

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The research goal is to assess clinical dynamics and morphofunctional skin parameters of patients with facial allergic dermatoses on the background of combined topical therapy. Materials and methods. 45 patients with various facial allergic dermatoses in dry and sensitive skin took part in the research. The methods included anamnesis taking, poll, objective examination and assessment of morphofunctional parameters of skin, as well as estimation of life quality dynamic index (LQDI. Main results. After a course of treatment with 0,05% solution of alclometasone dipropionate inflammation of dermatosis ceased in 45 (100% patients, itching and pains in 39 (86,7% patients, but complaints about dryness and peeling of facial skin remained in 41 (91,1% and 40 (88,8% patients respectively. On the background of therapy including emollient Aflocream the above mentioned symptoms did not appear in 43 (95,6% patients, wherein maximum effect was achieved in patients with allergic contact dermatitis - 14 (93,3%. After a course of topical therapy all patients showed statistically significant increase of epidermal moisture level, alongside with reduction of skin relief and degree of keratinization. During the assessment of LQDI a tendency to reduction of proportion of patients on whom the disease has a strong and extremely strong impact was noted in 10 patients (i.e. 22,2%, moderate influence - in 5 of them (11,45%, insignificant influence or its absence - in 30 (66,7% people. Conclusion. Combined therapy including the use of a topical corticosteroid Afloderm and an emollient Aflocream showed good clinical efficiency in patients with facial allergic dermatoses. The efficiency is also confirmed with improvements in morphofunctional characteristics of patients’ skin on the background of therapy.

Topical betamethasone for prevention of radiation dermatitis

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Omidvari Shapour

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Although acute radiation dermatitis (ARD is a common side-effect of radiotherapy (RT, currently there is no general consensus about its prevention or treatment of choice. Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether prophylactic use of topical betamethasone 0.1% can prevent ARD caused by chest wall irradiation. Methods: Fifty-one patients who underwent modified radical mastectomy for breast cancer and were going to receive RT, were randomly assigned to receive topical betamethasone 0.1%, petrolatum or none during RT. The frequency and severity of ARD (measured using Radiation Therapy Oncology Group acute radiation morbidity scoring criteria were recorded at the end of each week during RT and two weeks after its completion. Clinical outcomes were analyzed by relevant statistical methods. Results: All patients developed some degree of ARD, the frequency and severity of which increased with time and reached the maximum at the end of the seventh week for all groups. Patients receiving betamethasone had less severe ARD than the other two groups throughout the course of the study, but this difference was significant only at the end of the third week (p =0.027. No significant difference was observed between the petrolatum and control arms. Conclusion: Prophylactic and ongoing use of topical betamethasone 0.1% during chest wall RT for breast cancer delays occurrence of ARD but does not prevent it. Petrolatum has no effect on the prevention of ARD in these patients.

Differential Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Changyou; Buntine, Wray; Ding, Nan; Xie, Lexing; Du, Lan

2015-02-01

In applications we may want to compare different document collections: they could have shared content but also different and unique aspects in particular collections. This task has been called comparative text mining or cross-collection modeling. We present a differential topic model for this application that models both topic differences and similarities. For this we use hierarchical Bayesian nonparametric models. Moreover, we found it was important to properly model power-law phenomena in topic-word distributions and thus we used the full Pitman-Yor process rather than just a Dirichlet process. Furthermore, we propose the transformed Pitman-Yor process (TPYP) to incorporate prior knowledge such as vocabulary variations in different collections into the model. To deal with the non-conjugate issue between model prior and likelihood in the TPYP, we thus propose an efficient sampling algorithm using a data augmentation technique based on the multinomial theorem. Experimental results show the model discovers interesting aspects of different collections. We also show the proposed MCMC based algorithm achieves a dramatically reduced test perplexity compared to some existing topic models. Finally, we show our model outperforms the state-of-the-art for document classification/ideology prediction on a number of text collections.

Topic Model for Graph Mining.

Science.gov (United States)

Xuan, Junyu; Lu, Jie; Zhang, Guangquan; Luo, Xiangfeng

2015-12-01

Graph mining has been a popular research area because of its numerous application scenarios. Many unstructured and structured data can be represented as graphs, such as, documents, chemical molecular structures, and images. However, an issue in relation to current research on graphs is that they cannot adequately discover the topics hidden in graph-structured data which can be beneficial for both the unsupervised learning and supervised learning of the graphs. Although topic models have proved to be very successful in discovering latent topics, the standard topic models cannot be directly applied to graph-structured data due to the "bag-of-word" assumption. In this paper, an innovative graph topic model (GTM) is proposed to address this issue, which uses Bernoulli distributions to model the edges between nodes in a graph. It can, therefore, make the edges in a graph contribute to latent topic discovery and further improve the accuracy of the supervised and unsupervised learning of graphs. The experimental results on two different types of graph datasets show that the proposed GTM outperforms the latent Dirichlet allocation on classification by using the unveiled topics of these two models to represent graphs.

Improving Student Learning of Calculus Topics via Modified Just-in-Time Teaching Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Natarajan, Rekha; Bennett, Andrew

2014-01-01

Although the use of traditional just-in-time teaching techniques has long been viewed positively by students and instructors in undergraduate calculus courses, past studies in this area have not addressed gains in student achievement with respect to specific calculus topics. This paper investigates the latter by administering modified just-in-time…

A GIS technology and method to assess environmental problems from land use/cover changes: Conakry, Coyah and Dubreka region case study

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L. Sylla

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study is the result of investigating the land use/cover surrounding Conakry city and its two neighboring cities from the past to the present periods which are herein after referred to as this “region” and the impact of numerous changes during that time. These changes have become a major concern for the Guinean government and scientific community. Using map interpretation with integration of remote sensing, GIS technology and a GIS method we investigated the land use/cover and a population dynamism model with the aims of promoting a sustainable recovery and future judicious utilization. We found out that these three cities are on the verge of being unified, as a result of the expansion of urban residential areas and the changing economic realities causing significant influences on this land use/cover change. The pattern of land cover 59 years ago presented a landscape relatively pristine, while that in the present period presents a landscape that is markedly in a degrading decline. During the past 59 years, land use/cover has been influenced by key factors that revolve around socio-economic development, climatic patterns, topography manipulation, and policy implementation influences. The level of degradation of the land use/cover has increased and will oblige the political, scientific and local communities to take note of the environmental changes and set up urgent, rigorous and coherent policies for the rational development and management of the land use/cover resources of this region. That can be part of a model for other countries to reclaim the past sustainable environment.

Topical treatments of skin pain: a general review with a focus on hidradenitis suppurativa with topical agents.

Science.gov (United States)

Scheinfeld, Noah

2014-07-15

Hidradenitis Supprurativa (HS) is a painful chronic follicular disease. Few papers have addressed pain control for this debilitating condition. Possible topical agents include tricyclic antidepressants, opioids, anticonvulsants, NSAIDs, NMDA receptor antagonists, local anesthetics and other agents. The first line agents for the topical treatment of the cutaneous pain of HS are diclonefac gel 1% and liposomal xylocaine 4% and 5% cream or 5% ointment. The chief advantage of topical xylocaine is that is quick acting i.e. immediate however with a limited duration of effect 1-2 hours. The use of topical ketamine, which blocks n-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in a non-competitive fashion, might be a useful tool for the treatment of HS pain. Topical doxepin, which available in a 5% commercially preparation (Zonalon®) , makes patients drowsy and is not useful for controlling the pain of HS . Doxepin is available in a 3% or 3.3% concentration (which causes less drowsiness) from compounding pharmacies and can be used in compounded analgesic preparations with positive effect. Topical doxepin is preferred over use of topical amitriptyline because topical doxepin is more effective. Nevertheless, topical amitriptyline increase of the tactile and mechanical nociceptive thresholds and can be used for topical pain control in compound mixture of analgesics . Gabapentin and pregablin can also be used compounded with other agents in topical analgesic preparations with positive topical anesthetic effect. Capsaicin is not useful for topical treatment of the pain of HS. Sometimes compounded of anesthetics medications such as ketamine 10%, bupivacaine 1%, diclofenac 3%, doxepin 3% or 3.3%, and gabapentin 6% can extend the duration of effect so that medication only needs to be used 2 or 3 times a day. Still in my experience the easiest to get and most patient requested agent is topical diclonefac 1% gel.

46{sup th} Annual meeting on nuclear technology (AMNT 2015). Key topics / Outstanding know-how and sustainable innovations / Enhanced safety and operation excellence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schaffrath, Andreas; Scheuerer, Martina [Gesellschaft fuer Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit mbH (GRS), Garching (Germany); Oenneby Carina; Benjaminsson, Ulf [Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB, Vaesteraes (Sweden). Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

2015-11-15

Summary report on the Topical Sessions ''CFD Simulations for Reactor Safety Relevant Objectives '' and ''Fuel Management During the Last Cycles and Beyond'' of the 46th Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology (AMNT 2015) held in Berlin, 5 to 7 May 2015. Other Sessions of AMNT 2015 have been covered in atw 7 to 10 (2015) and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Skin permeation and antioxidant efficacy of topically applied resveratrol.

Science.gov (United States)

Alonso, Cristina; Martí, M; Barba, C; Carrer, V; Rubio, L; Coderch, L

2017-08-01

The permeation of resveratrol was assessed by in vitro and in vivo experiments 24 h after topical administration. The in vitro profile of resveratrol was assessed by Raman spectroscopy. Human skin permeation was analysed in vivo by the tape stripping method with the progressive removal of the stratum corneum layers using adhesive tape strips. Moreover, the free radical scavenging activity of resveratrol after its topical application was determined using the DPPH assay. The Raman spectra indicated that the topically applied resveratrol penetrates deep into the skin. The results showed high amounts of resveratrol in the different stratum corneum layers close to the surface and a constant lower amount in the upper layers of the viable epidermis. The concentration of resveratrol present in the outermost stratum corneum layers was obtained by tape stripping after in vivo application. The results demonstrated that resveratrol mainly remained in the human stratum corneum layers. After topical application, resveratrol maintained its antiradical activity. The antioxidant efficacy of the compound was higher in the inner layers of the stratum corneum. As these results have demonstrated, topically applied resveratrol reinforces the antioxidant system of the stratum corneum and provides an efficient means of increasing the tissue levels of antioxidants in the human epidermis.

Misuse of topical corticosteroids: A clinical study of adverse effects

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Vivek Kumar Dey

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Misuse of topical corticosteroids is a widespread phenomenon among young people in India, especially women. The practice is associated with significant adverse effects and poor awareness of these effects among the general public. Aim: This study was conducted to examine the misuse and adverse effects of topical corticosteroids among the people in Bastar region in Chhattisgarh state of India. Materials and Methods: Data collected from patients presenting with at least one of the adverse effects of topical corticosteroids as the chief complaint, from November 2010 to October 2011. Results: Out of the 6723 new patients, 379 (5.63% had presented with misuse and adverse effects of topical corticosteroids, of whom 78.89% were females. More than 65% of the patients were in the age group 10-29 years. The main reason for using the topical corticosteroids was to lighten skin colour and treat melasma and suntan. Acne (37.99% and telangiectasia (18.99% were the most common adverse effects noted. Conclusions: Misuse of topical corticosteroids has a huge impact on dermatological practice, leading to a significant proportion of visits to the dermatologist. This hydra-headed problem needs multi-dimensional interventions, involving educational, legal and managerial approaches with cooperation from different sectors of society.

Skin penetration and tissue permeation after topical administration of diclofenac.

Science.gov (United States)

Hagen, Martina; Baker, Mark

2017-09-01

Topical delivery of drugs is an alternative to oral administration, often with similar efficacy but potentially a more favorable tolerability profile. However, topical formulations need to be able to penetrate the skin and permeate to the target areas in quantities sufficient to exert a therapeutic effect. Many factors can affect this process, including the physicochemical properties of the drug, the formulation used, and the site and mode of application. It is believed that measurement of drug concentrations at the sites of action may be an indicator of their likely efficacy. This review addresses these issues, with reference to topically administered diclofenac in osteoarthritis. Articles relevant to this review were identified after a systematic search of Medline and Embase, using the key words "diclofenac", "topical administration" and "osteoarthritis" in the search strategy. The sparse data available indicate that topical diclofenac can penetrate and permeate to deeper tissues, with a lower plasma to tissue ratio than oral diclofenac. The tissue diclofenac levels after topical delivery are sustained over time (at least several hours). However, there is not enough data to establish how diclofenac levels in the joint compare with IC 50 levels (50% of the maximum inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis) established following oral administration. After topical application, diclofenac can penetrate the skin and permeate to deeper tissues, where it reaches a concentration that appears to be sufficient to exert a therapeutic effect. More robust methods are required for in vivo characterization to better estimate the clinical efficacy of topically applied drugs.

The role of preventive topical antibiotic treatment prior to intravitreal injection

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Elena Vladimirovna Ageeva

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD requires frequent intravitreal injections of anti-VEGF agents, sometimes on monthly basis during a long period of time. Endophthalmitis is a rare but extremely severe complication of intravitreal injections. As it has been proven before, the flora from the conjunctival surface is the main source for endophthalmitis. Using Povidone-iodine solution (Betadine10 % Povidone-iodine, EGIS PHARMACEUTICALS is the only way to prevent endophthalmitis. The efficacy of it was proven by numerous studies. No evidence exists that topical antibiotiotics prior and after injections could be effective for prevention of endophthalmitis. Purpose: To study the advisability of topical antibiotic application before intravitreal injection. Materials and methods: Under investigation, there were 25 eyes of 25 patients with wet AMD treated by anti-VEGF intravitreal injections. All patients used topical antibiotics 3 days before injection. Conjunctival culture from injection eye was collected three times: before topical antibiotic use; after topical antibiotic use, and after Betadine 5 % application. Results: The rates of Staphylococcus epidermidis before and after topical antibiotic use were approximately equal. However there was no Staphylococcus epidermidis found after Betadine 5 % application. Conclusion: Our study showed the effectiveness of Betadine 5 % solution in conjunctival flora reduction. Use of topical antibiotics 3 days prior intravitreal injections is not effective. Key words: age-related macular degeneration; endophthalmitis; intravitreal injection; topical antibiotics; endophthalmitis prevention.

Topics in linear optical quantum computation

Science.gov (United States)

Glancy, Scott Charles

This thesis covers several topics in optical quantum computation. A quantum computer is a computational device which is able to manipulate information by performing unitary operations on some physical system whose state can be described as a vector (or mixture of vectors) in a Hilbert space. The basic unit of information, called the qubit, is considered to be a system with two orthogonal states, which are assigned logical values of 0 and 1. Photons make excellent candidates to serve as qubits. They have little interactions with the environment. Many operations can be performed using very simple linear optical devices such as beam splitters and phase shifters. Photons can easily be processed through circuit-like networks. Operations can be performed in very short times. Photons are ideally suited for the long-distance communication of quantum information. The great difficulty in constructing an optical quantum computer is that photons naturally interact weakly with one another. This thesis first gives a brief review of two early approaches to optical quantum computation. It will describe how any discrete unitary operation can be performed using a single photon and a network of beam splitters, and how the Kerr effect can be used to construct a two photon logic gate. Second, this work provides a thorough introduction to the linear optical quantum computer developed by Knill, Laflamme, and Milburn. It then presents this author's results on the reliability of this scheme when implemented using imperfect photon detectors. This author finds that quantum computers of this sort cannot be built using current technology. Third, this dissertation describes a method for constructing a linear optical quantum computer using nearly orthogonal coherent states of light as the qubits. It shows how a universal set of logic operations can be performed, including calculations of the fidelity with which these operations may be accomplished. It discusses methods for reducing and

Review of design optimization methods for turbomachinery aerodynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Zhihui; Zheng, Xinqian

2017-08-01

In today's competitive environment, new turbomachinery designs need to be not only more efficient, quieter, and ;greener; but also need to be developed at on much shorter time scales and at lower costs. A number of advanced optimization strategies have been developed to achieve these requirements. This paper reviews recent progress in turbomachinery design optimization to solve real-world aerodynamic problems, especially for compressors and turbines. This review covers the following topics that are important for optimizing turbomachinery designs. (1) optimization methods, (2) stochastic optimization combined with blade parameterization methods and the design of experiment methods, (3) gradient-based optimization methods for compressors and turbines and (4) data mining techniques for Pareto Fronts. We also present our own insights regarding the current research trends and the future optimization of turbomachinery designs.

Topics on Japanese aseismic design for nuclear installations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakamura, Masahiko

2002-01-01

Major items of of Japanese anti-seismic design for nuclear installations involve three topics: earthquakes and ground motion; seismic design and safety evaluation. The first topic deal with: improvement of geological survey technology, evaluation of ground motion from active faults, and characterisation of earthquake from individual faults. Seismic design involves: evaluation of design ground motion (spectra), classification of structures, systems and components (SSCs) based on the seismic importance, and seismic design criteria and critical loads. Safety evaluation of seismic PSA is dependent on the consistency of the the two previous items. Seismic hazard evaluation methodology, database and examples of analysis are described. Analysis method using fault model is included

Topical steroid-damaged skin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anil Abraham

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Topical steroids, commonly used for a wide range of skin disorders, are associated with side effects both systemic and cutaneous. This article aims at bringing awareness among practitioners, about the cutaneous side effects of easily available, over the counter, topical steroids. This makes it important for us as dermatologists to weigh the usefulness of topical steroids versus their side effects, and to make an informed decision regarding their use in each individual based on other factors such as age, site involved and type of skin disorder.

Deriving Snow Cover Metrics for Alaska from MODIS

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Chuck Lindsay

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS daily snow cover products provide an opportunity for determining snow onset and melt dates across broad geographic regions; however, cloud cover and polar darkness are limiting factors at higher latitudes. This study presents snow onset and melt dates for Alaska, portions of western Canada and the Russian Far East derived from Terra MODIS snow cover daily 500 m grid data (MOD10A1 and evaluates our method for filling data gaps caused by clouds or polar darkness. Pixels classified as cloud or no data were reclassified by: spatial filtering using neighboring pixel values; temporal filtering using pixel values for days before/after cloud cover; and snow-cycle filtering based on a time series assessment of a pixel’s position within snow accumulation, cover or melt periods. During the 2012 snow year, these gap-filling methods reduced cloud pixels from 27.7% to 3.1%. A total of 12 metrics (e.g., date of first and last snow, date of persistent snow cover and periods of intermittence for each pixel were calculated by snow year. A comparison of MODIS-derived snow onset and melt dates with in situ observations from 244 weather stations generally showed an early bias in MODIS-derived dates and an effect of increasing cloudiness exacerbating bias. Our results show that mean regional duration of seasonal snow cover is 179–311 days/year and that snow cover is often intermittent, with 41% of the area experiencing ≥2 snow-covered periods during a snow season. Other regional-scale patterns in the timing of snow onset and melt are evident in the yearly 500 m gridded products publically available at http://static.gina.alaska.edu/NPS_products/MODIS_snow/.

Mental Mechanisms for Topics Identification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Louis Massey

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Topics identification (TI is the process that consists in determining the main themes present in natural language documents. The current TI modeling paradigm aims at acquiring semantic information from statistic properties of large text datasets. We investigate the mental mechanisms responsible for the identification of topics in a single document given existing knowledge. Our main hypothesis is that topics are the result of accumulated neural activation of loosely organized information stored in long-term memory (LTM. We experimentally tested our hypothesis with a computational model that simulates LTM activation. The model assumes activation decay as an unavoidable phenomenon originating from the bioelectric nature of neural systems. Since decay should negatively affect the quality of topics, the model predicts the presence of short-term memory (STM to keep the focus of attention on a few words, with the expected outcome of restoring quality to a baseline level. Our experiments measured topics quality of over 300 documents with various decay rates and STM capacity. Our results showed that accumulated activation of loosely organized information was an effective mental computational commodity to identify topics. It was furthermore confirmed that rapid decay is detrimental to topics quality but that limited capacity STM restores quality to a baseline level, even exceeding it slightly.

Alterations in fruit and vegetable beta-carotene and vitamin C content caused by open-sun drying, visqueen-covered and polyethylene-covered solar-dryers.

Science.gov (United States)

Ndawula, J; Kabasa, J D; Byaruhanga, Y B

2004-08-01

This study investigated the effects of three drying methods (open sun drying, visqueen-covered solar dryer and polyethylene-covered solar dryer) on b-carotene and vitamin C content of edible portions of mango fruit (Mangifera indica) and cowpea leaves (Vigna unguiculata). Commercial samples were analysed for vitamin C by titrimetry and b-carotene by spectrophotometry at 450 nm. Differences in vitamin retention and loss associated with the three drying methods were assessed by analysis of variance and least significant difference (LSD) at (pdrying. Open sun drying method caused the greatest b-carotene and vitamin C loss (58% and 84% respectively), while the visqueen-covered solar dryer caused the least loss (34.5% and 71% respectively). Blanching cowpea leaves improved b-carotene and vitamin C retention by 15% and 7.5% respectively. The b-carotene and vitamin C content of fresh ripe mango fruit was 5.9 and 164.3 mg/100g DM respectively. Similar to effects on cowpea leaves, the mango micronutrient content decreased (pdrying. The open sun drying method caused the greatest b-carotene (94.2%) and vitamin C (84.5%) loss, while the visqueen-covered solar dryer caused the least (73 and 53% respectively). These results show that the three solar drying methods cause significant loss of pro-vitamin A and vitamin C in dried fruits and vegetables. However, open sun drying causes the most loss and the visqueen-covered solar dryer the least, making the later a probable better drying technology for fruit and vegetable preservation. The drying technologies should be improved to enhance vitamin retention.

Holddown arrangement for removable cover of a pressurized nuclear-reactor core and method of using same

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beine, B.

1976-01-01

A pressurized nuclear-reactor core is surrounded by a burst shield having a side wall formed with a plurality of longitudinal passages in which are received longitudinal prestressing elements whose upper ends extend beyond the upper edge of the side wall. The cover is formed with a plurality of holes that register with the passages in the side wall so that the cover can be set over the top of the side wall with the upper ends of the prestressing elements projecting beyond the cover. Each prestressing element is provided at its upper end with an anchor body which can bear in force-transmitting relationship either with the side wall of the burst shield through a sleeve received in the cover and having a lower end standing on the upper edge of the side wall and an upper end adjacent the anchor body, or with the cover by means of a removable nut screwed on to the anchor body and engageable in force-transmitting relationship with the cover. In use the anchor body is dimensioned to pass through the cover on the top of the side wall so that when this cover is to be removed the nut is unscrewed and the anchor body bears through the sleeve on the upper edge of the side wall in order that the side wall not be destressed. 8 claims, 6 drawing figures

KEY TOPICS IN SPORTS MEDICINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amir Ali Narvani

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Key Topics in Sports Medicine is a single quick reference source for sports and exercise medicine. It presents the essential information from across relevant topic areas, and includes both the core and emerging issues in this rapidly developing field. It covers: 1 Sports injuries, rehabilitation and injury prevention, 2 Exercise physiology, fitness testing and training, 3 Drugs in sport, 4 Exercise and health promotion, 5 Sport and exercise for special and clinical populations, 6 The psychology of performance and injury. PURPOSE The Key Topics format provides extensive, concise information in an accessible, easy-to-follow manner. AUDIENCE The book is targeted the students and specialists in sports medicine and rehabilitation, athletic training, physiotherapy and orthopaedic surgery. The editors are authorities in their respective fields and this handbook depends on their extensive experience and knowledge accumulated over the years. FEATURES The book contains the information for clinical guidance, rapid access to concise details and facts. It is composed of 99 topics which present the information in an order that is considered logical and progressive as in most texts. Chapter headings are: 1. Functional Anatomy, 2. Training Principles / Development of Strength and Power, 3. Biomechanical Principles, 4. Biomechanical Analysis, 5. Physiology of Training, 6. Monitoring of Training Progress, 7. Nutrition, 8. Hot and Cold Climates, 9. Altitude, 10. Sport and Travelling, 11. Principles of Sport Injury Diagnosis, 12. Principles of Sport and Soft Tissue Management, 13. Principles of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, 14. Principles of Sport Injury Prevention, 15. Sports Psychology, 16. Team Sports, 17. Psychological Aspects of Injury in Sport, 18. Injury Repair Process, 19. Basic Biomechanics of Tissue Injury, 20. Plain Film Radiography in Sport, 21. Nuclear Medicine, 22. Diagnostic Ultrasound, 23. MRI Scan, 24. Other Imaging, 5. Head Injury, 26. Eye

A Topic Space Oriented User Group Discovering Scheme in Social Network: A Trust Chain Based Interest Measuring Perspective

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Wang Dong

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Currently, user group has become an effective platform for information sharing and communicating among users in social network sites. In present work, we propose a single topic user group discovering scheme, which includes three phases: topic impact evaluation, interest degree measurement, and trust chain based discovering, to enable selecting influential topic and discovering users into a topic oriented group. Our main works include (1 an overview of proposed scheme and its related definitions; (2 topic space construction method based on topic relatedness clustering and its impact (influence degree and popularity degree evaluation; (3 a trust chain model to take user relation network topological information into account with a strength classification perspective; (4 an interest degree (user explicit and implicit interest degree evaluation method based on trust chain among users; and (5 a topic space oriented user group discovering method to group core users according to their explicit interest degrees and to predict ordinary users under implicit interest and user trust chain. Finally, experimental results are given to explain effectiveness and feasibility of our scheme.

The Prosody of Topic Transition in Interaction: Pitch Register Variations.

Science.gov (United States)

Riou, Marine

2017-12-01

In conversation, speakers can mobilize a variety of prosodic cues to signal a switch in topics. This paper uses a mixed-methods approach combining Conversation Analysis and Instrumental Prosody to investigate the prosody of topic transition in American English, and analyzes the ways in which speakers can play on register level and on register span. A cluster of three prosodic parameters was found to be predictive of transitions: a higher maximum fundamental frequency (F0), a higher median F0 (key), and an expanded register span. Relative to speakers' habitual profiles, the mobilization of such prosodic cues corresponds to a marked upgraded prosodic design. This finding is consistent with the general assumption that continuation constitutes the norm in conversation, and that departing from it, as in the case of a topic transition, requires a marked action and marked linguistic design. The disjunctive action of opening a new topic corresponds to the use of a marked prosodic cue.

Topical Treatment of Degenerative Knee Osteoarthritis.

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Zengdong; Huang, Rongzhong

2018-01-01

This article reviews topical management strategies for degenerative osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. A search of Pubmed, Embase and the Cochrane library using MeSH terms including "topical," "treatment," "knee" and "osteoarthritis" was carried out. Original research and review articles on the effectiveness and safety, recommendations from international published guidelines and acceptability studies of topical preparations were included. Current topical treatments included for the management of knee OA include topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, capsaicin, salicylates and physical treatments such as hot or cold therapy. Current treatment guidelines recommend topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as an alternative and even first-line therapy for OA management, especially among elderly patients. Guidelines on other topical treatments vary, from recommendations against their use, to in favor as alternative or simultaneous therapy, especially for patients with contraindications to other analgesics. Although often well-tolerated and preferred by many patients, clinical care still lags in the adoption of topical treatments. Aspects of efficacy, safety and patient quality of life data require further research. Copyright © 2018 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparisons in the Organisation, Methods, and Results of the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (Spain) and The Open University of The United Kingdom.

Science.gov (United States)

James, Arthur

The organization, methods, and outcomes of the distance education systems at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED) in Spain and The Open University of the United Kingdom are compared. The following topics are covered: higher education in Spain, UNED's ideology, student characteristics in both universities, organization,…

Topical treatment of psoriasis: questionnaire results on topical therapy accessibility and influence of body surface area on usage.

Science.gov (United States)

Iversen, L; Lange, M M; Bissonette, R; Carvalho, A V E; van de Kerkhof, P C; Kirby, B; Kleyn, C E; Lynde, C W; van der Walt, J M; Wu, J J

2017-07-01

Topical treatment of mild to moderate psoriasis is first-line treatment and exhibits varying degrees of success across patient groups. Key factors influencing treatment success are physician topical treatment choice (high efficacy, low adverse events) and strict patient adherence. Currently, no formalized, international consensus guidelines exist to direct optimal topical treatment, although many countries have national guidelines. To describe and analyse cross-regional variations in the use and access of psoriasis topical therapies. The study was conducted as an observational cross-sectional study. A survey was distributed to dermatologists from the International Psoriasis Council (IPC) to assess topical therapy accessibility in 26 countries and to understand how body surface area (BSA) categories guide clinical decisions on topical use. Variation in the availability of tars, topical retinoids, dithranol and balneotherapy was reported. The vast majority of respondents (100% and 88.4%) used topical therapy as first-line monotherapy in situations with BSA 10%, the number of respondents who prescribe topical therapy decreased considerably. In addition, combination therapy of a topical drug and a systemic drug was frequently reported when BSA measured >10%. This physician survey provides new evidence on topical access and the influence of disease severity on topical usage in an effort to improve treatment strategies on a global level. © 2017 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

Assessment of land cover changes in Lampedusa Island (Italy) using Landsat TM and OLI data

Science.gov (United States)

Mei, Alessandro; Manzo, Ciro; Fontinovo, Giuliano; Bassani, Cristiana; Allegrini, Alessia; Petracchini, Francesco

2016-10-01

The Lampedusa Island displays important socio-economic criticalities related to an intensive touristic activity, which implies an increase in electricity consumption and waste production. An adequate island conversion to a more environmental, sustainable community needs to be faced by the local Management Plans establishment. For this purpose, several thematic datasets have to be produced and evaluated. Socio-economic and bio-ecological components as well as land cover/use assessment are some of the main topics to be managed within the Decision Support Systems. Considering the lack of Land Cover (LC) and vegetation change detection maps in Lampedusa Island (Italy), this paper focuses on the retrieval of these topics by remote sensing techniques. The analysis was carried out by Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI multispectral images from 1984 to 2014 in order to obtain spatial and temporal information of changes occurred in the island. Firstly, imagery was co-registered and atmospherically corrected; secondly, it was then classified for land cover and vegetation distribution analysis with the use of QGIS and Saga GIS open source softwares. The Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) was used for LC maps production, while the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used for vegetation examination and distribution. Topographic maps, historical aerial photos, ortophotos and field data are merged in the GIS for accuracy assessment. Finally, change detection of MLC and NDVI are provided respectively by Post-Classification Comparison (PCC) and Image Differencing (ID). The provided information, combined with local socio-economic parameters, is essential for the improvement of environmental sustainability of anthropogenic activities in Lampedusa.

TOPICAL REVIEW: Single-molecule experiments in biological physics: methods and applications

Science.gov (United States)

Ritort, F.

2006-08-01

I review single-molecule experiments (SMEs) in biological physics. Recent technological developments have provided the tools to design and build scientific instruments of high enough sensitivity and precision to manipulate and visualize individual molecules and measure microscopic forces. Using SMEs it is possible to manipulate molecules one at a time and measure distributions describing molecular properties, characterize the kinetics of biomolecular reactions and detect molecular intermediates. SMEs provide additional information about thermodynamics and kinetics of biomolecular processes. This complements information obtained in traditional bulk assays. In SMEs it is also possible to measure small energies and detect large Brownian deviations in biomolecular reactions, thereby offering new methods and systems to scrutinize the basic foundations of statistical mechanics. This review is written at a very introductory level, emphasizing the importance of SMEs to scientists interested in knowing the common playground of ideas and the interdisciplinary topics accessible by these techniques. The review discusses SMEs from an experimental perspective, first exposing the most common experimental methodologies and later presenting various molecular systems where such techniques have been applied. I briefly discuss experimental techniques such as atomic-force microscopy (AFM), laser optical tweezers (LOTs), magnetic tweezers (MTs), biomembrane force probes (BFPs) and single-molecule fluorescence (SMF). I then present several applications of SME to the study of nucleic acids (DNA, RNA and DNA condensation) and proteins (protein-protein interactions, protein folding and molecular motors). Finally, I discuss applications of SMEs to the study of the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of small systems and the experimental verification of fluctuation theorems. I conclude with a discussion of open questions and future perspectives.

Developing a New North American Land Cover Product at 30m Resolution: Methods, Results and Future Plans

Science.gov (United States)

Homer, C.; Colditz, R. R.; Latifovic, R.; Llamas, R. M.; Pouliot, D.; Danielson, P.; Meneses, C.; Victoria, A.; Ressl, R.; Richardson, K.; Vulpescu, M.

2017-12-01

Land cover and land cover change information at regional and continental scales has become fundamental for studying and understanding the terrestrial environment. With recent advances in computer science and freely available image archives, continental land cover mapping has been advancing to higher spatial resolution products. The North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) remains the principal provider of seamless land cover maps of North America. Founded in 2006, this collaboration among the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States has released two previous products based on 250m MODIS images, including a 2005 land cover and a 2005-2010 land cover change product. NALCMS has recently completed the next generation North America land cover product, based upon 30m Landsat images. This product now provides the first ever 30m land cover produced for the North American continent, providing 19 classes of seamless land cover. This presentation provides an overview of country-specific image classification processes, describes the continental map production process, provides results for the North American continent and discusses future plans. NALCMS is coordinated by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and all products can be obtained at their website - www.cec.org.

Topics in quantum groups and finite-type invariants mathematics at the independent University of Moscow

CERN Document Server

Arkhipov, S M; Odesskii, A V; Feigin, B; Vassiliev, V

1998-01-01

This volume presents the first collection of articles consisting entirely of work by faculty and students of the Higher Mathematics College of the Independent University of Moscow (IUM). This unique institution was established to train elite students to become research scientists. Covered in the book are two main topics: quantum groups and low-dimensional topology. The articles were written by participants of the Feigin and Vassiliev seminars, two of the most active seminars at the IUM.

47{sup th} Annual meeting on nuclear technology (AMNT 2016). Key topic / Outstanding know-how and sustainable innovations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zwermann, Winfried [Gesellschaft fuer Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) gGmbH, Garching (Germany). Forschungszentrum

2016-11-15

Summary report on the Key Topic ''Outstanding Know-How and Sustainable Innovations'' Technical Session ''Reactor Physics, Thermo, and Fluid Dynamics'' of the 47th Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology (AMNT 2016) held in Hamburg, 10 to 12 May 2016. Other Sessions of AMNT 2016 have been and will be covered in further issues of atw.

Tracking Multiple Topics for Finding Interesting Articles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pon, R K; Cardenas, A F; Buttler, D J; Critchlow, T J

2008-01-03

We introduce multiple topic tracking (MTT) for iScore to better recommend news articles for users with multiple interests and to address changes in user interests over time. As an extension of the basic Rocchio algorithm, traditional topic detection and tracking, and single-pass clustering, MTT maintains multiple interest profiles to identify interesting articles for a specific user given user-feedback. Focusing on only interesting topics enables iScore to discard useless profiles to address changes in user interests and to achieve a balance between resource consumption and classification accuracy. iScore is able to achieve higher quality results than traditional methods such as the Rocchio algorithm. We identify several operating parameters that work well for MTT. Using the same parameters, we show that MTT alone yields high quality results for recommending interesting articles from several corpora. The inclusion of MTT improves iScore's performance by 25% in recommending news articles from the Yahoo! News RSS feeds and the TREC11 adaptive filter article collection. And through a small user study, we show that iScore can still perform well when only provided with little user feedback.

Validation of land use / land cover changes for Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levin, Gregor; Johannsen, Vivian Kvist; Caspersen, Ole Hjort

2018-01-01

This report presents applied methods and results for a validation of land use and land cover changes for 1990 and 2014-2016. Results indicate that generally, accuracies of land use and land cover. However, afforestation and particularly deforestation are significantly overestimated....

Coral bleaching, hurricane damage, and benthic cover on coral reefs in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands: A comparison of surveys with the chain transect method and videography

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, C.S.; Miller, J.

2001-01-01

The linear chain transect method and videography were used to quantify the percent cover by corals, macroalgae, gorgonians, other living organisms, and substrate along permanent transects on two fringing reefs off St. John. Both methods were used simultaneously on Lameshur reef in November 1998, and on Newfound reef in March and October 1998. Hurricane Georges passed over St. John in September 1998, and a severe coral bleaching episode began the same month. Both methods gave remarkably similar values for coral cover, while the video method gave consistently higher values for gorgonians and macroalgae. The most dramatic difference was in the quantification of bleaching. At Newfound, the chain method indicated 13.4% (SD = 14.1) of the coral tissues were bleached and the video method, 43.4% (SD = 13.0). Corresponding values at Lameshur were 18.1% (SD = 22.3) and 46.5% (SD = 13.3). Although hurricane damage was conspicuous at Newfound reef, neither method showed significant changes in coral cover or other categories as a result of the storm.

Proceedings of the 1992 topical meeting on advances in reactor physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

This document, Volume 1, presents proceedings of the 1992 Topical Meeting on Advances in Reactor Physics on March 8--11, 1992 at Charleston, SC. Session topics were as follows: Code Benchmarks and Validation; Fuel Management; Nodal Methods for Diffusion Theory; Criticality Safety and Applications and Waste; Core Computational Systems; Nuclear Data; Safety Aspects of Heavy Water Reactors; and Space-Time Core Kinetics. The individual papers have been cataloged separately. (FI)

Sentiment topic mining based on comment tags

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Daohai; Liu, Xue; Li, Juan; Fan, Mingyue

2018-03-01

With the development of e-commerce, various comments based on tags are generated, how to extract valuable information from these comment tags has become an important content of business management decisions. This study takes HUAWEI mobile phone tags as an example using the sentiment analysis and topic LDA mining method. The first step is data preprocessing and classification of comment tag topic mining. And then make the sentiment classification for comment tags. Finally, mine the comments again and analyze the emotional theme distribution under different sentiment classification. The results show that HUAWEI mobile phone has a good user experience in terms of fluency, cost performance, appearance, etc. Meanwhile, it should pay more attention to independent research and development, product design and development. In addition, battery and speed performance should be enhanced.

National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Land Cover Collection

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Land Cover Collection is produced through a cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC)...

An Upscaling Method for Cover-Management Factor and Its Application in the Loess Plateau of China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yang Qiu

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The cover-management factor (C-factor is important for studying soil erosion. In addition, it is important to use sampling plot data to estimate the regional C-factor when assessing erosion and soil conservation. Here, the loess hill and gully region in Ansai County, China, was studied to determine a method for computing the C-factor. This C-factor is used in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE at a regional scale. After upscaling the slope-scale computational equation, the C-factor for Ansai County was calculated by using the soil loss ratio, precipitation and land use/cover type. The multi-year mean C-factor for Ansai County was 0.36. The C-factor values were greater in the eastern region of the county than in the western region. In addition, the lowest C-factor values were found in the southern region of the county near its southern border. These spatial differences were consistent with the spatial distribution of the soil loess ratios across areas with different land uses. Additional research is needed to determine the effects of seasonal vegetation growth changes on the C-factor, and the C-factor upscaling uncertainties at a regional scale.

An upscaling method for cover-management factor and its application in the loess Plateau of China.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Wenwu; Fu, Bojie; Qiu, Yang

2013-10-09

The cover-management factor (C-factor) is important for studying soil erosion. In addition, it is important to use sampling plot data to estimate the regional C-factor when assessing erosion and soil conservation. Here, the loess hill and gully region in Ansai County, China, was studied to determine a method for computing the C-factor. This C-factor is used in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) at a regional scale. After upscaling the slope-scale computational equation, the C-factor for Ansai County was calculated by using the soil loss ratio, precipitation and land use/cover type. The multi-year mean C-factor for Ansai County was 0.36. The C-factor values were greater in the eastern region of the county than in the western region. In addition, the lowest C-factor values were found in the southern region of the county near its southern border. These spatial differences were consistent with the spatial distribution of the soil loess ratios across areas with different land uses. Additional research is needed to determine the effects of seasonal vegetation growth changes on the C-factor, and the C-factor upscaling uncertainties at a regional scale.

Effects of application methods of metam sodium and plastic covers on horizontal and vertical distributions of methyl isothiocyanate in bedded field plots.

Science.gov (United States)

Ou, Li-Tse; Thomas, John E; Allen, L Hartwell; Vu, Joseph C; Dickson, Donald W

2006-08-01

This study was conducted to examine the effects of three application methods of metam sodium (broadcast, single irrigation drip tape delivery, and double irrigation drip tape delivery) and two plastic covers (polyethylene film and virtually impermeable film) on volatilization and on horizontal and vertical distributions of the biologically active product of metam sodium, methyl isothiocyanate (MITC), in field plots in a Florida sandy soil. Volatilization of MITC from field beds lasted for about 20 hours after completion of metam sodium application regardless of application methods. Virtually impermeable film (VIF) was a better barrier to reduce volatilization loss than polyethylene film (PE). Since water was not applied during broadcast application, MITC was mainly retained in the shallow soil layer (0- to 20-cm depth) and downward movement of MITC was limited to about 30 cm. Large values of standard deviation indicated that initial spatial distribution of MITC in the root zone (10- and 20-cm depths) of the two broadcast applied beds covered with PE or VIF was variable. Twice more water was delivered through the single drip tape than through individual tapes of double drip tape treatments during drip application of metam sodium. More water from the single drip tape likely facilitated downward movement of MITC to at least 60-cm depth, but MITC did not penetrate to this depth in the double drip tape beds. On the other hand, horizontal distribution of MITC in the root zone (10- and 20-cm depths) in the double drip tape beds was more uniform than in the single drip tape beds. More MITC was retained in the subsurface of the VIF-covered beds regardless of application methods than in the PE-covered beds.

Topical methotrexate pretreatment enhances the therapeutic effect of topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy on hamster buccal pouch precancers.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Deng-Fu; Lee, Jeng-Woei; Chen, Hsin-Ming; Hsu, Yih-Chih

2014-09-01

Topical 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is effective for treatment of human oral precancerous lesions. This animal study aimed to assess whether topical methotrexate (MTX) pretreatment could enhance the therapeutic effect of topical ALA-PDT on hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions. Twenty hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions were treated with either topical ALA-PDT with topical MTX pretreatment (topical MTX-ALA-PDT group, n = 10) or topical ALA-PDT alone (topical ALA-PDT group, n = 10). The intracellular protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) level in another 12 precancerous lesions (n = 6 for either the topical MTX-ALA or topical ALA group) was monitored by fluorescence spectroscopy. The intracellular PpIX reached its peak level in precancerous lesions 6.5 hours and 2.5 hours after topical ALA application for the topical MTX-ALA group (5.63-fold higher in the lesion than in the normal mucosa) and topical ALA group (2.42-fold higher in the lesion than in the normal mucosa), respectively. The complete response rate of precancerous lesions was 80% for the topical MTX-ALA-PDT group and 70% for the topical ALA-PDT group. In addition, the topical MTX-ALA-PDT group required a significantly lower mean treatment number (2.1 ± 0.6) to achieve complete response than the topical ALA-PDT group (4.4 ± 1.3, p topical MTX-ALA-PDT group had a lower recurrence rate (12.5%) than the topical ALA-PDT group (28.6%). We conclude that topical MTX-pretreatment can increase intracellular PpIX production in hamster buccal pouch precancerous lesions and significantly improves the outcomes of the precancerous lesions treated with topical ALA-PDT. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Etodolac Containing Topical Niosomal Gel: Formulation Development and Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gyati Shilakari Asthana

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The present study aimed to investigate the delivery potential of Etodolac (ETD containing topical niosomal gel. Niosomal formulations were prepared by thin film hydration method at various ratios of cholesterol and Span 60 and were evaluated with respect to particle size, shape, entrapment efficiency, and in vitro characteristics. Dicetyl phosphate (DCP was also added in the niosomal formulation. Mean particle size of niosomal formulation was found to be in the range of 2 μm to 4 μm. Niosomal formulation N2 (1 : 1 ratio of cholesterol and surfactant displayed good entrapment efficiency (96.72%. TEM analyses showed that niosomal formulation was spherical in shape. Niosomal formulation (N2 displayed high percentage of drug release after 24 h (94.91 at (1 : 1 ratio of cholesterol : surfactant. Further selected niosomal formulation was used to formulate topical gel and was characterized with respect to its various parameters such as pH, viscosity, spreadability, ex vivo study, and in vivo potential permeation. Ex vivo study showed that niosomal gel possessed better skin permeation study than the plain topical gel. Further in vivo study revealed good inhibition of inflammation in case of topical niosomal gel than plain gel and niosomal formulation. The present study suggested that topical niosomal gel formulations provide sustained and prolonged delivery of drug.

Land cover fire proneness in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mario Gonzalez Pereira

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Aim of study: This study aims to identify and characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by forest fires in Europe. The characterization of the fuels is an important issue of the fire regime in each specific ecosystem while, on the other hand, fire is an important disturbance for global vegetation dynamics.Area of study: Southern European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.Material and Methods: Corine Land Cover maps for 2000 and 2006 (CLC2000, CLC2006 and burned area (BA perimeters, from 2000 to 2013 in Europe are combined to access the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by wild fires using descriptive statistics and Geographical Information System (GIS techniques.Main results: The spatial and temporal distribution of BA perimeters, vegetation and burnt vegetation by wild fires was performed and different statistics were obtained for Mediterranean and entire Europe, confirming the usefulness of the proposed land cover system. A fire proneness index is proposed to assess the fire selectivity of land cover classes. The index allowed to quantify and to compare the propensity of vegetation classes and countries to fire.Research highlights: The usefulness and efficiency of the land cover classification scheme and fire proneness index. The differences between northern Europe and southern Europe and among the Mediterranean region in what concerns to vegetation cover, fire incidence, area burnt in land cover classes and fire proneness between classes for the different countries.Keywords: Fire proneness; Mixed forests; Land cover/land use; Fire regime; Europe; GIS; Corine land cover. 

A comparative study of the efficacy of topical negative pressure moist dressings and conventional moist dressings in chronic wounds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tauro Leo

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Aim: To assess the efficacy of topical negative pressure moist wound dressing as compared to conventional moist wound dressings in improving the healing process in chronic wounds and to prove that negative pressure dressings can be used as a much better treatment option in the management of chronic wounds. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective comparative study of data from 112 patients with chronic wounds, of which 56 patients underwent topical negative pressure dressings (17 diabetic, 10 pressure sores, nine ischemic, two varicose, 10 post-infective raw areas and eight traumatic - six had bone exposed, two orthopaedic prosthesis exposed. The remaining 56 patients underwent conventional moist dressings (20 diabetic, two ischemic, 15 pressure sores, three varicose, eight post-infective raw areas and eight traumatic - five had bone exposed, three orthopaedic prosthesis exposed. The results were compared after 10 days. The variables compared were, rate of granulation tissue formation as a percentage of ulcer area covered, skin graft take up as the percentage of ulcer surface area and duration of hospital stay. The variables were compared using Unpaired Student′s t test. A " P" value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Out of 56 patients who underwent topical negative pressure dressings, six (10.71% were failures, due to failure in maintaining topical negative pressure due to defective sealing technique; these were included into the study group. After 10 days, the mean rate of granulation tissue formation was 71.43% of ulcer surface area. All these 56 cases underwent split-thickness skin grafting. The mean graft take-up was 79.29%. The mean hospital stay was 32.64 days. In the remaining 56 patients, the mean rate of granulation tissue formation was 52.85% of ulcer surface area. The mean graft take-up was only 60.45% of the total ulcer surface area. The mean hospital stay was 60.45 days. Conclusion: To conclude, topical negative

Mathematical and statistical methods for actuarial sciences and finance

CERN Document Server

Sibillo, Marilena

2014-01-01

The interaction between mathematicians and statisticians working in the actuarial and financial fields is producing numerous meaningful scientific results. This volume, comprising a series of four-page papers, gathers new ideas relating to mathematical and statistical methods in the actuarial sciences and finance. The book covers a variety of topics of interest from both theoretical and applied perspectives, including: actuarial models; alternative testing approaches; behavioral finance; clustering techniques; coherent and non-coherent risk measures; credit-scoring approaches; data envelopment analysis; dynamic stochastic programming; financial contagion models; financial ratios; intelligent financial trading systems; mixture normality approaches; Monte Carlo-based methodologies; multicriteria methods; nonlinear parameter estimation techniques; nonlinear threshold models; particle swarm optimization; performance measures; portfolio optimization; pricing methods for structured and non-structured derivatives; r...

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Land Cover Changes in Kigali, Rwanda Using Multitemporal Landsat Data and Landscape Metrics

Science.gov (United States)

Mugiraneza, T.; Haas, J.; Ban, Y.

2017-11-01

Mapping urbanization and ensuing environmental impacts using satellite data combined with landscape metrics has become a hot research topic. The objectives of the study are to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of urbanization patterns of Kigali, Rwanda over the last three decades (from 1984 to 2015) using multitemporal Landsat data and to assess the associated environmental impact using landscape metrics. Landsat images, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) variance texture and digital elevation model (DEM) data were classified using a support vector machine (SVM). Eight landscape indices were derived from classified images for urbanization environment impact assessment. Seven land cover classes were derived with an overall accuracy exceeding 88 % with Kappa Coefficients around 0.8. As most prominent changes, cropland was reduced considerably in favour of built-up areas that increased from 2,349 ha to 11,579 ha between 1984 and 2015. During those 31 years, the increased number of patches in most land cover classes illustrated landscape fragmentation, especially for forest. The landscape configuration indices demonstrate that in general the land cover pattern remained stable for cropland but it was highly changed in built-up areas. Satellite-based analysis and quantification of urbanization and its effects using landscape metrics are found to be interesting for grassroots and provide a cost-effective method for urban information production. This information can be used for e.g. potential design and implementation of early warning systems that cater for urbanization effects.

Optimization of composite sandwich cover panels subjected to compressive loadings

Science.gov (United States)

Cruz, Juan R.

1991-01-01

An analysis and design method is presented for the design of composite sandwich cover panels that include the transverse shear effects and damage tolerance considerations. This method is incorporated into a sandwich optimization computer program entitled SANDOP. As a demonstration of its capabilities, SANDOP is used in the present study to design optimized composite sandwich cover panels for for transport aircraft wing applications. The results of this design study indicate that optimized composite sandwich cover panels have approximately the same structural efficiency as stiffened composite cover panels designed to satisfy individual constraints. The results also indicate that inplane stiffness requirements have a large effect on the weight of these composite sandwich cover panels at higher load levels. Increasing the maximum allowable strain and the upper percentage limit of the 0 degree and +/- 45 degree plies can yield significant weight savings. The results show that the structural efficiency of these optimized composite sandwich cover panels is relatively insensitive to changes in core density. Thus, core density should be chosen by criteria other than minimum weight (e.g., damage tolerance, ease of manufacture, etc.).

The Obstacles for the Teaching of 8th Grade TR History of Revolution and Kemalism Course According to the Constructivist Approach (An Example of Exploratory Sequential Mixed Method Design)

Science.gov (United States)

Karademir, Yavuz; Demir, Selcuk Besir

2015-01-01

The aim of this study is to ascertain the problems social studies teachers face in the teaching of topics covered in 8th grade TRHRK Course. The study was conducted in line with explanatory sequential mixed method design, which is one of the mixed research method, was used. The study involves three phases. In the first step, exploratory process…

Numerical methods for metamaterial design

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

This book describes a relatively new approach for the design of electromagnetic metamaterials.  Numerical optimization routines are combined with electromagnetic simulations to tailor the broadband optical properties of a metamaterial to have predetermined responses at predetermined wavelengths. After a review of both the major efforts within the field of metamaterials and the field of mathematical optimization, chapters covering both gradient-based and derivative-free design methods are considered.  Selected topics including surrogate-base optimization, adaptive mesh search, and genetic algorithms are shown to be effective, gradient-free optimization strategies.  Additionally, new techniques for representing dielectric distributions in two dimensions, including level sets, are demonstrated as effective methods for gradient-based optimization.  Each chapter begins with a rigorous review of the optimization strategy used, and is followed by numerous examples that combine the strategy with either electromag...

Pain-relieving properties of topically applied morphine on arterial leg ulcers: a pilot study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jansen, M.M.; Horst, J.C. van der; Valk, P.G.M. van der; Kuks, P.F.M.; Zylicz, Z.; Sorge, A.A. van

2009-01-01

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether topical morphine is pharmacologically effective in relieving pain from ulcers caused by arterial insufficiency and identify whether this effect is centrally or peripherally mediated. METHOD: The analgesic effect of a topically applied hydrogel containing 0.5% of morphine

Dermal carotenoid level and kinetics after topical and systemic administration of antioxidants: enrichment strategies in a controlled in vivo study.

Science.gov (United States)

Darvin, Maxim E; Fluhr, Joachim W; Schanzer, Sabine; Richter, Heike; Patzelt, Alexa; Meinke, Martina C; Zastrow, Leonhard; Golz, Karin; Doucet, Olivier; Sterry, Wolfram; Lademann, Juergen

2011-10-01

High doses of sun-emitted UV-radiation induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) as major pro-oxidants thus inducing premature skin aging. The best prevention of the destructive action of free radicals in human skin is textile coverings, topical sunscreens and the development of a high antioxidative protective network. The effects of topical, systemic and combined application of antioxidants (AO) were investigated on human skin in vivo. Topical application of creams and systemic incorporation of tablets both containing AO was investigated in vivo by resonance Raman spectroscopy. Topical, systemic and combined AO-treatments induced a statistically significant increase of AO levels in human skin while placebo did not show any changes. The highest accumulation was induced by the combination of topical and systemic AO. Carotenoid-tablets combined with placebo-cream induced less carotenoid accumulation than carotenoid-tablets alone. Carotenoid levelling after the end of treatment lasted for around 2 weeks following the topical application of AOs, and up to 5 weeks after systemic administration, depending on the BMI of volunteers. Topically applied AO are stored in the SC for a short time only due to the rapid AO-depletion by desquamation, textile contact, washing and environmental stress. In contrast to topical application, the systemically applied carotenoids are stored in the body fat tissue and slowly released onto the skin surface with sweat and sebum. The combined topical and systemic application of AO represents an optimal form of protection of the AO-network. Copyright © 2011 Japanese Society for Investigative Dermatology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Land Cover Classification from Multispectral Data Using Computational Intelligence Tools: A Comparative Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Mora

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This article discusses how computational intelligence techniques are applied to fuse spectral images into a higher level image of land cover distribution for remote sensing, specifically for satellite image classification. We compare a fuzzy-inference method with two other computational intelligence methods, decision trees and neural networks, using a case study of land cover classification from satellite images. Further, an unsupervised approach based on k-means clustering has been also taken into consideration for comparison. The fuzzy-inference method includes training the classifier with a fuzzy-fusion technique and then performing land cover classification using reinforcement aggregation operators. To assess the robustness of the four methods, a comparative study including three years of land cover maps for the district of Mandimba, Niassa province, Mozambique, was undertaken. Our results show that the fuzzy-fusion method performs similarly to decision trees, achieving reliable classifications; neural networks suffer from overfitting; while k-means clustering constitutes a promising technique to identify land cover types from unknown areas.

Land use/cover classification in the Brazilian Amazon using satellite images.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Dengsheng; Batistella, Mateus; Li, Guiying; Moran, Emilio; Hetrick, Scott; Freitas, Corina da Costa; Dutra, Luciano Vieira; Sant'anna, Sidnei João Siqueira

2012-09-01

Land use/cover classification is one of the most important applications in remote sensing. However, mapping accurate land use/cover spatial distribution is a challenge, particularly in moist tropical regions, due to the complex biophysical environment and limitations of remote sensing data per se. This paper reviews experiments related to land use/cover classification in the Brazilian Amazon for a decade. Through comprehensive analysis of the classification results, it is concluded that spatial information inherent in remote sensing data plays an essential role in improving land use/cover classification. Incorporation of suitable textural images into multispectral bands and use of segmentation-based method are valuable ways to improve land use/cover classification, especially for high spatial resolution images. Data fusion of multi-resolution images within optical sensor data is vital for visual interpretation, but may not improve classification performance. In contrast, integration of optical and radar data did improve classification performance when the proper data fusion method was used. Of the classification algorithms available, the maximum likelihood classifier is still an important method for providing reasonably good accuracy, but nonparametric algorithms, such as classification tree analysis, has the potential to provide better results. However, they often require more time to achieve parametric optimization. Proper use of hierarchical-based methods is fundamental for developing accurate land use/cover classification, mainly from historical remotely sensed data.

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.

Enhanced Cover Assessment Project:Soil Manipulation and Revegetation Tests

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Waugh, W. Joseph [Navarro Research and Engineering, Inc.; Albright, Dr. Bill [Desert Research Inst. (DRI), Reno, NV (United States); Benson, Dr. Craig [University of Wisconsin-Madison

2014-02-01

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management is evaluating methods to enhance natural changes that are essentially converting conventional disposal cell covers for uranium mill tailings into water balance covers. Conventional covers rely on a layer of compacted clayey soil to limit exhalation of radon gas and percolation of rainwater. Water balance covers rely on a less compacted soil “sponge” to store rainwater, and on soil evaporation and plant transpiration (evapotranspiration) to remove stored water and thereby limit percolation. Over time, natural soil-forming and ecological processes are changing conventional covers by increasing hydraulic conductivity, loosening compaction, and increasing evapotranspiration. The rock armor on conventional covers creates a favorable habitat for vegetation by slowing soil evaporation, increasing soil water storage, and trapping dust and organic matter, thereby providing the water and nutrients needed for plant germination, survival, and sustainable transpiration. Goals and Objectives Our overall goal is to determine if allowing or enhancing these natural changes could improve cover performance and reduce maintenance costs over the long term. This test pad study focuses on cover soil hydrology and ecology. Companion studies are evaluating effects of natural and enhanced changes in covers on radon attenuation, erosion, and biointrusion. We constructed a test cover at the Grand Junction disposal site to evaluate soil manipulation and revegetation methods. The engineering design, construction, and properties of the test cover match the upper three layers of the nearby disposal cell cover: a 1-foot armoring of rock riprap, a 6-inch bedding layer of coarse sand and gravel, and a 2-foot protection layer of compacted fine soil. The test cover does not have a radon barrier—cover enhancement tests leave the radon barrier intact. We tested furrowing and ripping as means for creating depressions parallel to the slope

Mining FDA drug labels using an unsupervised learning technique - topic modeling

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug labels contain a broad array of information, ranging from adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to drug efficacy, risk-benefit consideration, and more. However, the labeling language used to describe these information is free text often containing ambiguous semantic descriptions, which poses a great challenge in retrieving useful information from the labeling text in a consistent and accurate fashion for comparative analysis across drugs. Consequently, this task has largely relied on the manual reading of the full text by experts, which is time consuming and labor intensive. Method In this study, a novel text mining method with unsupervised learning in nature, called topic modeling, was applied to the drug labeling with a goal of discovering “topics” that group drugs with similar safety concerns and/or therapeutic uses together. A total of 794 FDA-approved drug labels were used in this study. First, the three labeling sections (i.e., Boxed Warning, Warnings and Precautions, Adverse Reactions) of each drug label were processed by the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) to convert the free text of each label to the standard ADR terms. Next, the topic modeling approach with latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was applied to generate 100 topics, each associated with a set of drugs grouped together based on the probability analysis. Lastly, the efficacy of the topic modeling was evaluated based on known information about the therapeutic uses and safety data of drugs. Results The results demonstrate that drugs grouped by topics are associated with the same safety concerns and/or therapeutic uses with statistical significance (P<0.05). The identified topics have distinct context that can be directly linked to specific adverse events (e.g., liver injury or kidney injury) or therapeutic application (e.g., antiinfectives for systemic use). We were also able to identify potential adverse events that

Worldwide Utilization of Topical Remedies in Treatment of Psoriasis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svendsen, Mathias Tiedemann; Jeyabalan, Janithika; Andersen, Klaus Ejner

2017-01-01

OBJECTIVE: To review published literature describing the global use of topical antipsoriatics. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Search for English-language articles in Embase, Pubmed, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library. RESULTS: Fifty-four selected publications were found, describing psoriasis patients' use of ...

Topical anesthesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mritunjay Kumar

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Topical anesthetics are being widely used in numerous medical and surgical sub-specialties such as anesthesia, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, dentistry, urology, and aesthetic surgery. They cause superficial loss of pain sensation after direct application. Their delivery and effectiveness can be enhanced by using free bases; by increasing the drug concentration, lowering the melting point; by using physical and chemical permeation enhancers and lipid delivery vesicles. Various topical anesthetic agents available for use are eutectic mixture of local anesthetics, ELA-max, lidocaine, epinephrine, tetracaine, bupivanor, 4% tetracaine, benzocaine, proparacaine, Betacaine-LA, topicaine, lidoderm, S-caine patch™ and local anesthetic peel. While using them, careful attention must be paid to their pharmacology, area and duration of application, age and weight of the patients and possible side-effects.

Mapping land cover gradients through analysis of hyper-temporal NDVI imagery

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ali, A.; de Bie, C.A.J.M.; Skidmore, A.K.; Scarrott, R.G.; Hamad, A.A.; Venus, V.; Lymberakis, P.

2013-01-01

The green cover of the earth exhibits various spatial gradients that represent gradual changes in space of vegetation density and/or in species composition. To date, land cover mapping methods differentiate at best, mapping units with different cover densities and/or species compositions, but

Proceedings of the topical meeting on reactivity initiated accidents (RIA)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

The topical meeting was devoted to RIA fuel acceptance criteria, in particular to the fuel fragmentation enthalpy limit and the PCMI failure enthalpy limit in relation to high burnup fuel. In total 50 participants attended. Research and industry organisations from France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Russian Federation, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the USA including the Swiss regulatory body, HSK, and the Halden reactor project, presented 16 papers in all. The papers covered three main areas: 'best estimate' core calculations for RIA energy deposition in high burnup fuels, the technical background of current and new RIA fuel safety criteria, and ongoing RIA experimental programmes. A number of open issues were identified, whose resolution is expected from ongoing and planned national and international experimental programmes

Multi-topic assignment for exploratory navigation of consumer health information in NetWellness using formal concept analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Licong; Xu, Rong; Luo, Zhihui; Wentz, Susan; Scarberry, Kyle; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2014-08-03

Finding quality consumer health information online can effectively bring important public health benefits to the general population. It can empower people with timely and current knowledge for managing their health and promoting wellbeing. Despite a popular belief that search engines such as Google can solve all information access problems, recent studies show that using search engines and simple search terms is not sufficient. Our objective is to provide an approach to organizing consumer health information for navigational exploration, complementing keyword-based direct search. Multi-topic assignment to health information, such as online questions, is a fundamental step for navigational exploration. We introduce a new multi-topic assignment method combining semantic annotation using UMLS concepts (CUIs) and Formal Concept Analysis (FCA). Each question was tagged with CUIs identified by MetaMap. The CUIs were filtered with term-frequency and a new term-strength index to construct a CUI-question context. The CUI-question context and a topic-subject context were used for multi-topic assignment, resulting in a topic-question context. The topic-question context was then directly used for constructing a prototype navigational exploration interface. Experimental evaluation was performed on the task of automatic multi-topic assignment of 99 predefined topics for about 60,000 consumer health questions from NetWellness. Using example-based metrics, suitable for multi-topic assignment problems, our method achieved a precision of 0.849, recall of 0.774, and F₁ measure of 0.782, using a reference standard of 278 questions with manually assigned topics. Compared to NetWellness' original topic assignment, a 36.5% increase in recall is achieved with virtually no sacrifice in precision. Enhancing the recall of multi-topic assignment without sacrificing precision is a prerequisite for achieving the benefits of navigational exploration. Our new multi-topic assignment method

Chemical Topic Modeling: Exploring Molecular Data Sets Using a Common Text-Mining Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Nadine; Fechner, Nikolas; Landrum, Gregory A; Stiefl, Nikolaus

2017-08-28

Big data is one of the key transformative factors which increasingly influences all aspects of modern life. Although this transformation brings vast opportunities it also generates novel challenges, not the least of which is organizing and searching this data deluge. The field of medicinal chemistry is not different: more and more data are being generated, for instance, by technologies such as DNA encoded libraries, peptide libraries, text mining of large literature corpora, and new in silico enumeration methods. Handling those huge sets of molecules effectively is quite challenging and requires compromises that often come at the expense of the interpretability of the results. In order to find an intuitive and meaningful approach to organizing large molecular data sets, we adopted a probabilistic framework called "topic modeling" from the text-mining field. Here we present the first chemistry-related implementation of this method, which allows large molecule sets to be assigned to "chemical topics" and investigating the relationships between those. In this first study, we thoroughly evaluate this novel method in different experiments and discuss both its disadvantages and advantages. We show very promising results in reproducing human-assigned concepts using the approach to identify and retrieve chemical series from sets of molecules. We have also created an intuitive visualization of the chemical topics output by the algorithm. This is a huge benefit compared to other unsupervised machine-learning methods, like clustering, which are commonly used to group sets of molecules. Finally, we applied the new method to the 1.6 million molecules of the ChEMBL22 data set to test its robustness and efficiency. In about 1 h we built a 100-topic model of this large data set in which we could identify interesting topics like "proteins", "DNA", or "steroids". Along with this publication we provide our data sets and an open-source implementation of the new method (CheTo) which

A simple semi-automatic approach for land cover classification from multispectral remote sensing imagery.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dong Jiang

Full Text Available Land cover data represent a fundamental data source for various types of scientific research. The classification of land cover based on satellite data is a challenging task, and an efficient classification method is needed. In this study, an automatic scheme is proposed for the classification of land use using multispectral remote sensing images based on change detection and a semi-supervised classifier. The satellite image can be automatically classified using only the prior land cover map and existing images; therefore human involvement is reduced to a minimum, ensuring the operability of the method. The method was tested in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, China. Using Environment Satellite 1(HJ-1 images of 2009 with 30 m spatial resolution, the areas were classified into five main types of land cover based on previous land cover data and spectral features. The results agreed on validation of land cover maps well with a Kappa value of 0.79 and statistical area biases in proportion less than 6%. This study proposed a simple semi-automatic approach for land cover classification by using prior maps with satisfied accuracy, which integrated the accuracy of visual interpretation and performance of automatic classification methods. The method can be used for land cover mapping in areas lacking ground reference information or identifying rapid variation of land cover regions (such as rapid urbanization with convenience.

76 FR 81806 - Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-29

.... FDA-2011-N-0003] Ophthalmic and Topical Dosage Form New Animal Drugs; Ivermectin Topical Solution... solution of ivermectin. DATES: This rule is effective December 29, 2011. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT... ANADA 200-318 for [[Page 81807

One-Dimensional Finite Elements An Introduction to the FE Method

CERN Document Server

Öchsner, Andreas

2013-01-01

 This textbook presents finite element methods using exclusively  one-dimensional elements. The aim is to present the complex methodology in  an easily understandable but mathematically correct fashion. The approach of  one-dimensional elements enables the reader to focus on the understanding of  the principles of basic and advanced mechanical problems. The reader easily  understands the assumptions and limitations of mechanical modeling as well  as the underlying physics without struggling with complex mathematics. But  although the description is easy it remains scientifically correct.   The approach using only one-dimensional elements covers not only standard  problems but allows also for advanced topics like plasticity or the  mechanics of composite materials. Many examples illustrate the concepts and  problems at the end of every chapter help to familiarize with the topics.

Does Certification Change the Trajectory of Tree Cover in Working Forests in The Tropics? An Application of the Synthetic Control Method of Impact Evaluation

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Pushpendra Rana

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC remains rare among forest management units (FMUs in natural tropical forests, presenting a challenge for impact evaluation. We demonstrate application of the synthetic control method (SCM to evaluate the impact of FSC certification on a single FMU in each of three tropical forest landscapes. Specifically, we estimate causal effects on tree cover change from the year of certification to 2012 using SCM and open-access, pan-tropical datasets. We demonstrate that it is possible to construct synthetic controls, or weighted combinations of non-certified FMUs, that followed the same path of tree cover change as the certified FMUs before certification. By using these synthetic controls to measure counterfactual tree cover change after certification, we find that certification reduced tree cover loss in the most recent year (2012 in all three landscapes. However, placebo tests show that in one case, this effect was not significant, and in another case, it followed several years in which certification had the opposite effect (increasing tree cover loss. We conclude that SCM has promise for identifying temporally varying impacts of small-N interventions on land use and land cover change.

Landfill Top Covers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Scheutz, Charlotte; Kjeldsen, Peter

2011-01-01

The purpose of the final cover of a landfill is to contain the waste and to provide for a physical separation between the waste and the environment for protection of public health. Most landfill covers are designed with the primary goal to reduce or prevent infiltration of precipitation...... into the landfill in order to minimize leachate generation. In addition the cover also has to control the release of gases produced in the landfill so the gas can be ventilated, collected and utilized, or oxidized in situ. The landfill cover should also minimize erosion and support vegetation. Finally the cover...... is landscaped in order to fit into the surrounding area/environment or meet specific plans for the final use of the landfill. To fulfill the above listed requirements landfill covers are often multicomponent systems which are placed directly on top of the waste. The top cover may be placed immediately after...

Topical corticosteroid-induced rosacea-like dermatitis: A clinical study of 110 cases

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Sanjay K Rathi

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Prolonged and continuous use of topical steroids leads to rosacea-like dermatitis with variable clinical presentations. Aims: To study the various clinical presentations of patients with topical corticosteroid-induced rosacea-like dermatitis (TCIRD, who had a history of prolonged and repeated use of topical steroids for reasons other than the known disease entities. Methods: A total of 110 patients were enrolled for the study over a period of 2 years, excluding all those with the known disease entity in which topical steroids were commonly used. Detailed history which also included the source and the type of topical steroid use was taken along with clinical examination. Results: There were 12 males and 98 females with their age ranging from 18 to 54 years. The duration of topical steroid use ranged from 4 months to 20 years. The most common clinical presentation was diffuse erythema of the face. Most of the patients had rebound phenomenon on discontinuation of the steroid. The most common topical steroid used was Betamethasone valerate, which could be due to its easy availability and low cost. Conclusion: Varied clinical presentations are seen with prolonged and continuous use of topical steroids. The treatment of this dermatitis is difficult, requiring complete cessation of the offending steroid, usually done in a tapering fashion.

Methods of mathematical modelling continuous systems and differential equations

CERN Document Server

Witelski, Thomas

2015-01-01

This book presents mathematical modelling and the integrated process of formulating sets of equations to describe real-world problems. It describes methods for obtaining solutions of challenging differential equations stemming from problems in areas such as chemical reactions, population dynamics, mechanical systems, and fluid mechanics. Chapters 1 to 4 cover essential topics in ordinary differential equations, transport equations and the calculus of variations that are important for formulating models. Chapters 5 to 11 then develop more advanced techniques including similarity solutions, matched asymptotic expansions, multiple scale analysis, long-wave models, and fast/slow dynamical systems. Methods of Mathematical Modelling will be useful for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in applied mathematics, engineering and other applied sciences.

Large Deviations and Asymptotic Methods in Finance

CERN Document Server

Gatheral, Jim; Gulisashvili, Archil; Jacquier, Antoine; Teichmann, Josef

2015-01-01

Topics covered in this volume (large deviations, differential geometry, asymptotic expansions, central limit theorems) give a full picture of the current advances in the application of asymptotic methods in mathematical finance, and thereby provide rigorous solutions to important mathematical and financial issues, such as implied volatility asymptotics, local volatility extrapolation, systemic risk and volatility estimation. This volume gathers together ground-breaking results in this field by some of its leading experts. Over the past decade, asymptotic methods have played an increasingly important role in the study of the behaviour of (financial) models. These methods provide a useful alternative to numerical methods in settings where the latter may lose accuracy (in extremes such as small and large strikes, and small maturities), and lead to a clearer understanding of the behaviour of models, and of the influence of parameters on this behaviour. Graduate students, researchers and practitioners will find th...

Clouds cover variability in São Paulo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciana Machado de Moura

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Clouds cover observations are performed by visual inspection which determines the fraction of the sky that is overcast. However, visual observation of clouds cover is a very subjective method, and can vary significantly among observers. This study examined the variability in clouds cover over the city of São Paulo between 1961 and 2013, using clouds cover fraction data observed at the weather station operated by IAG / USP. The study also used two techniques based on visible radiance data observed by the GOES-10 satellite in order to indirectly estimate clouds cover. In order to ensure consistency, the estimated and observed cloudiness was compared with the clearness index, which is the ratio between the total solar radiation observed at the weather station and the incoming solar irradiation at the top of atmosphere. The study found consistency between the various databases that showed similar behavior in all of the seasons of the year. The largest cloudiness values occurred in the summer and lowest in the winter.

Topical immunomodulators in dermatology

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Khandpur Sujay

2004-04-01

Full Text Available Topical immunomodulators are agents that regulate the local immune response of the skin. They are now emerging as the therapy of choice for several immune-mediated dermatoses such as atopic dermatitis, contact allergic dermatitis, alopecia areata, psoriasis, vitiligo, connective tissue disorders such as morphea and lupus erythematosus, disorders of keratinization and several benign and malignant skin tumours, because of their comparable efficacy, ease of application and greater safety than their systemic counterparts. They can be used on a domiciliary basis for longer periods without aggressive monitoring. In this article, we have discussed the mechanism of action, common indications and side-effects of the commonly used topical immunomodulators, excluding topical steroids. Moreover, newer agents, which are still in the experimental stages, have also been described. A MEDLINE search was undertaken using the key words "topical immunomodulators, dermatology" and related articles were also searched. In addition, a manual search for many Indian articles, which are not indexed, was also carried out. Wherever possible, the full article was reviewed. If the full article could not be traced, the abstract was used.

Topical sirolimus for the treatment of angiofibromas in tuberous sclerosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salih Levent Cinar

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The skin is one of the most affected organs in tuberous sclerosis complex and angiofibromas are seen in almost 80% of such patients. These benign tumors impose a great psycho-social burden on patients. Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness and tolerability of topical sirolimus for facial angiofibromas in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex. Methods: This was a prospective, single-blinded, cross-over study which involved twelve patients. We investigated the effect and safety of topical 0.1% sirolimus, which was obtained by crushing sirolimus tablets and mixing it with petrolatum. The patients were asked to apply the cream to one side of their face, and vaseline to the other side. The effect of topical sirolimus was evaluated using the “facial angiofibroma severity index.” Results: There was a significant improvement in the redness and extension of the tumors on the sides to which the active ingredient was applied. Some side effects such as itching and irritation occurred in three patients, which were treated with topical hydrocortisone cream. Conclusion: Topical sirolimus appears to be a promising, fairly well tolerated treatment for facial angiofibromas in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex. Although its efficacy diminishes with time, repetitive usage is effective.

Building bridges across electronic health record systems through inferred phenotypic topics.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, You; Ghosh, Joydeep; Bejan, Cosmin Adrian; Gunter, Carl A; Gupta, Siddharth; Kho, Abel; Liebovitz, David; Sun, Jimeng; Denny, Joshua; Malin, Bradley

2015-06-01

Data in electronic health records (EHRs) is being increasingly leveraged for secondary uses, ranging from biomedical association studies to comparative effectiveness. To perform studies at scale and transfer knowledge from one institution to another in a meaningful way, we need to harmonize the phenotypes in such systems. Traditionally, this has been accomplished through expert specification of phenotypes via standardized terminologies, such as billing codes. However, this approach may be biased by the experience and expectations of the experts, as well as the vocabulary used to describe such patients. The goal of this work is to develop a data-driven strategy to (1) infer phenotypic topics within patient populations and (2) assess the degree to which such topics facilitate a mapping across populations in disparate healthcare systems. We adapt a generative topic modeling strategy, based on latent Dirichlet allocation, to infer phenotypic topics. We utilize a variance analysis to assess the projection of a patient population from one healthcare system onto the topics learned from another system. The consistency of learned phenotypic topics was evaluated using (1) the similarity of topics, (2) the stability of a patient population across topics, and (3) the transferability of a topic across sites. We evaluated our approaches using four months of inpatient data from two geographically distinct healthcare systems: (1) Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and (2) Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). The method learned 25 phenotypic topics from each healthcare system. The average cosine similarity between matched topics across the two sites was 0.39, a remarkably high value given the very high dimensionality of the feature space. The average stability of VUMC and NMH patients across the topics of two sites was 0.988 and 0.812, respectively, as measured by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Also the VUMC and NMH topics have smaller variance of characterizing

Recent Advances In Topical Therapy In Dermatology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohan Thappa Devinder

2003-01-01

Full Text Available With changing times various newer topical agents are introduced in the field of dermatology. Tacrolimus and pimecrolimus are immunisuppressants, which are effective topically and are tried in the management of atopic dermatitis as well as other disorders including allergic contact dermatitis, atrophic lichen planus, pyoderma gangrenosum. Imiquimod, an immune response modifier, is presently in use for genital warts but has potentials as anti- tumour agent and in various other dermatological conditions when used topically. Tazarotene is a newer addition to the list of topical reginoids, which is effective in psoriasis and has better effect in combination with calcipotriene, phototherapy and topical costicosteroids. Tazarotene and adapelene are also effective in inflammatory acne. Calcipotriol, a vitamin D analogue has been introduced as a topical agent in the treatment of psoriasis. Steroid components are also developed recently which will be devoid of the side effects but having adequate anti-inflammatory effect. Topical photodynamic therapy has also a wide range of use in dermatology. Newer topical agents including cidofovir, capsaicin, topical sensitizers, topical antifungal agents for onychomycosis are also of use in clinical practice. Other promising developments include skin substitutes and growth factors for wound care.

Topical administration of orbital fat-derived stem cells promotes corneal tissue regeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Ko-Jo; Loi, Mei-Xue; Lien, Gi-Shih; Cheng, Chieh-Feng; Pao, Hsiang-Yin; Chang, Yun-Chuang; Ji, Andrea Tung-Qian; Ho, Jennifer Hui-Chun

2013-06-14

Topical administration of eye drops is the major route for drug delivery to the cornea. Orbital fat-derived stem cells (OFSCs) possess an in vitro corneal epithelial differentiation capacity. Both the safety and immunomodulatory ability of systemic OFSC transplantation were demonstrated in our previous work. In this study, we investigated the safety, therapeutic effect, and mechanism(s) of topical OFSC administration in an extensive alkali-induced corneal wound. Corneal injury was created by contact of a piece of 0.5 N NaOH-containing filter paper on the corneal surface of a male Balb/c mouse for 30 s. The area of the filter paper covered the central 70% or 100% of the corneal surface. OFSCs (2 × 10(5)) in 5 μl phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) were given by topical administration (T) twice a day or by two intralimbal (IL) injections in the right cornea, while 5 μl of PBS in the left cornea served as the control. Topical OFSCs promoted corneal re-epithelialization of both the limbal-sparing and limbal-involved corneal wounds. In the first three days, topical OFSCs significantly reduced alkali-induced corneal edema and stromal infiltration according to a histopathological examination. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining revealed that transplanted cells were easily detectable in the corneal epithelium, limbal epithelium and stroma, but only some of transplanted cells at the limbal epithelium had differentiated into cytokeratin 3-expressing cells. OFSCs did not alter neutrophil (Ly6G) levels in the cornea, but significantly reduced macrophage (CD68) infiltration and inducible nitrous oxide synthetase (iNOS) production during acute corneal injury as quantified by a Western blot analysis. Continuous topical administration of OFSCs for seven days improved corneal transparency, and this was accompanied by diffuse stromal engraftment of transplanted cells and differentiation into p63-expressing cells at the limbal area. The therapeutic effect of the

Accounting interpretation of concession rights in the Republic of Bulgaria – topical issues  

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rumiana Pozharevska

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The subject of this paper covers the topical problems for the Republic of Bulgaria on the recognition, presentation and disclosure of concession rights and transactions for accounting purposes. The issues identified by the authors have a regulatory, theoretical character and concern their practical application. The aspects studied within this paper are: recognition of concession rights as intangible assets and their positioning in the total amount of assets of concessionaire enterprises; requirement and readiness for disclosure of information relating to concession agreements. The authors seek to suggest solutions in the specified directions.

The Effectiveness of Topical Pimecrolimus in the Treatment of Oral Lichen Planus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet Kamil Mülayim

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Oral lichen planus (OLP is a chronic inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology that affects the skin and the mucosa, especially the oral mucosa. Several therapeutic agents have been investigated for the treatment of OLP. All agents used in the OLP therapy are palliative. Potent topical steroids are used as the conventional therapy for OLP. Since side-effects or steroid resistance may be encountered, alternative treatments may be necessary. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the topical pimecrolimus in the treatment of OLP. Methods: Seventeen patients with OLP were recruited into this study. Topical pimecrolimus 1% cream was applied twice a day to the affected areas. Patients were followed up for 3-6 months. Photographs of the lesions were taken and analyzed for areas of ulceration, erythema, and reticulation in every clinical examination. Results: We found that topical pimecrolimus 1% cream was an effective treatment for OLP. Two patients could not complete the treatment protocol because of the side effects such as local irritation and nausea. Conclusion: Topical pimecrolimus may be a valuable second treatment choice for patients with steroid-related side-effects or steroid-resistant OLP. However further randomized controlled studies have to be conducted to compare conventional treatment of topical corticosteroid with topical pimecrolimus.

Topical medication utilization and health resources consumption in adult patients affected by psoriasis: findings from the analysis of administrative databases of local health units

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Perrone V

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Valentina Perrone, Diego Sangiorgi, Stefano Buda, Luca Degli Esposti Clicon S.r.l. Health, Economics & Outcomes Research, Ravenna, Italy Aim: The objectives of this study were to: 1 analyze the drug utilization pattern among adult psoriasis patients who were newly prescribed with topical medication; and 2 assess their adherence to topical therapy and the possibility of switching to other strategies in the treatment process. Methods: An observational retrospective analysis was conducted based on administrative databases of two Italian local health units. All adult subjects who were diagnosed with psoriasis or who were newly prescribed for topical medication with at least one prescription between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2014, were screened. Only patients who were “non-occasional users of topical drugs” (if they had at least two prescriptions of topical drugs in a time space of 2 years were considered for the first and second objectives in the analysis. The date of the first prescription of topical agents was identified as the index date (ID, which was then followed for all time available from ID (follow-up period. The adherence to therapy was assessed on the basis of cycles of treatment covered in the 6 months before the end of the follow-up period. The mean health care costs in patients who switched to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs or biologics after the ID were evaluated. Results: A total of 17,860 patients with psoriasis who were newly prescribed for topical medication were identified. A total of 2,477 were identified as “non-occasional users of topical drugs”, of whom 70.2% had a prescription for a topical fixed combination regimen at ID. Around 19% adhered to their medication, whereas 6% switched to other options of psoriasis treatment. Multivariable logistic regression model shows that patients on fixed combination treatment were less likely to be non-adherent to treatment and less likely to switch to

Topical therapies in the management of chronic rhinosinusitis: an evidence-based review with recommendations.

Science.gov (United States)

Rudmik, Luke; Hoy, Monica; Schlosser, Rodney J; Harvey, Richard J; Welch, Kevin C; Lund, Valerie; Smith, Timothy L

2013-04-01

Topical therapies have become an integral component in the management plan for chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Several topical therapy strategies have been evaluated, but a formal comprehensive evaluation of the evidence has never been performed. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based approach for the utilization of topical therapies in the management of CRS. A systematic review of the literature was performed and the guidelines for development of an evidence-based review with recommendations were followed. Study inclusion criteria were: adult population >18 years old; chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) based on published diagnostic criteria; and clearly defined primary clinical end-point. We focused on reporting higher-quality studies (level 2b or higher), but reported on lower-level studies if the topic contained insufficient evidence. We excluded drug-eluting spacer and stent therapy from this review. This review identified and evaluated the literature on 5 topical therapy strategies for CRS: saline irrigation, topical steroid, topical antibiotic, topical antifungal, and topical alternatives (surfactant, manuka honey, and xylitol irrigations). Based on the available evidence, sinonasal saline irrigation and standard topical nasal steroid therapy are recommended in the topical treatment of CRS. Nonstandard (off-label) topical sinonasal steroid therapies can be an option for managing CRS. The evidence recommends against the use of topical antifungal therapy and topical antibiotic therapy delivered using nebulized and spray techniques in routine cases of CRS. There is insufficient clinical research to provide recommendations for alternative therapies or topical antibiotic therapy delivered using other delivery methods (eg, irrigations). © 2013 ARS-AAOA, LLC.

Topic Modeling of Hierarchical Corpora /

OpenAIRE

Kim, Do-kyum

2014-01-01

The sizes of modern digital libraries have grown beyond our capacity to comprehend manually. Thus we need new tools to help us in organizing and browsing large corpora of text that do not require manually examining each document. To this end, machine learning researchers have developed topic models, statistical learning algorithms for automatic comprehension of large collections of text. Topic models provide both global and local views of a corpus; they discover topics that run through the co...

Testosterone Topical

Science.gov (United States)

... not apply any testosterone topical products to your penis or scrotum or to skin that has sores, ... are severe or do not go away: breast enlargement and/or pain decreased sexual desire acne depression ...

Recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software: An overview

OpenAIRE

Chang, Chia-Lin; McAleer, Michael

2017-01-01

textabstractThe paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted "global" in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on economics, thereby making it "global economics". In this sense, the paper is concerned with papers on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, as well as global software algorithms that have...

Improving automated disturbance maps using snow-covered landsat time series stacks

Science.gov (United States)

Kirk M. Stueve; Ian W. Housman; Patrick L. Zimmerman; Mark D. Nelson; Jeremy Webb; Charles H. Perry; Robert A. Chastain; Dale D. Gormanson; Chengquan Huang; Sean P. Healey; Warren B. Cohen

2012-01-01

Snow-covered winter Landsat time series stacks are used to develop a nonforest mask to enhance automated disturbance maps produced by the Vegetation Change Tracker (VCT). This method exploits the enhanced spectral separability between forested and nonforested areas that occurs with sufficient snow cover. This method resulted in significant improvements in Vegetation...

Credibility improves topical blog post retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Weerkamp, W.; de Rijke, M.

2008-01-01

Topical blog post retrieval is the task of ranking blog posts with respect to their relevance for a given topic. To improve topical blog post retrieval we incorporate textual credibility indicators in the retrieval process. We consider two groups of indicators: post level (determined using

Comparison of topical capsaicin and topical turpentine oil for treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Musharraf, M.U.; Ahmed, Z.

2017-01-01

Background: Diabetes Mellitus is a pandemic of the modern era owing to our rapidly deteriorating lifestyle. Painful diabetic neuropathy is one of the costliest and disabling complications of diabetes mellitus. No single treatment exists to prevent or reverse neuropathic changes or to provide total pain relief. Topical Capsaicin and Turpentine Oil are found to be effective in treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy. Methods: Patients of either gender with ages between 18 and 70 years having painful diabetic neuropathy already taking one oral drug for painful neuropathy and treatment for diabetes mellitus and an HbA1C less than 8.5% were included while Pregnant or lactating mothers, patients with chronic liver disease and patients with renal insufficiency (creatinine >3.0 mg/dl) and peripheral arterial disease were excluded from study. Patients were randomly divided into two groups (A and B) using computer generated random number table. Group A was given topical application of capsaicin while Group B was given topical application of commercially available turpentine oil over painful site on feet. Results: 300 patients were equally divided in two groups. The patients in group A had a Visual Analog Pain Score of 7.91±5.10 at baseline and 5.10±1.343 after 3 months of treatment (p-value 0.0001). The patients in group B had a Visual Analog Pain Score of 7.83±1.012 at baseline and 5.20±1.187 after 3 months of treatment (p-value 0.0001). Chi Square test was applied to compare efficacy of both groups. It was noted that 71 (53%) had efficacy in group A and 63 (47%) had efficacy in the group B but the difference was not statistically significant. (p-value=0.399). Conclusion: It has been concluded that turpentine oil is effective in managing diabetic neuropathic pain similar to capsaicin cream.

Increasing topical anesthetic efficacy with microneedle application.

Science.gov (United States)

Buhsem, Ömer; Aksoy, Alper; Kececi, Yavuz; Sir, Emin; Güngör, Melike

2016-10-01

Since topical anesthetics alone seldom provide adequate analgesia for laser resurfacing procedures, injectable forms of anesthesia are often required. However, their application is uncomfortable for the patient. In this study, it is investigated whether microneedle application would enhance the efficacy of topical anesthetics. Forty-seven patients participated in the study. Topical anesthetic agent EMLA was applied to the whole face of the patients. Microneedle treatment was applied to one side of the face with a roller-type device. Whole-face carbon dioxide laser resurfacing therapy was carried out then. The pain that patients experienced was assessed by using visual analog scale (VAS) method. VAS scores of two sides of the face were compared by using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The mean of VAS score of the microneedle treated side was 2.1 ± 1.1 while that of the untreated side was 5.9 ± 0.9 and this difference was statistically significant (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, the Z-value is - 5.9683 and the p-value is < 0.001). This study revealed that microneedle application, with a roller-type device, is a safe and easy procedure in providing sufficient anesthesia for facial laser resurfacing without the need for supplementary nerve blocks or injections.

Topic prominence in Chinese EFL learners’ interlanguage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shaopeng Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The present study aims to investigate the general characteristics of topicprominent typological interlanguage development of Chinese learners of English in terms of acquiring subject-prominent English structures from a discourse perspective. Topic structures mainly appear in Chinese discourse in the form of topic chains (Wang, 2002; 2004. The research target are the topic chain, which is the main topic-prominent structure in Chinese discourse, and zero anaphora, which is the most common topic anaphora in the topic chain. Two important findings emerged from the present study. First, the characteristics of Chinese topic chains are transferrable to the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners, thus resulting in overgeneralization of the zero anaphora. Second, the interlanguage discourse of Chinese EFL learners reflects a change of the second language acquisition process from topic-prominence to subject-prominence, thus lending support to the discourse transfer hypothesis.

A study of topics for distance education-A survey of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees

Science.gov (United States)

Ratz, Joan M.; Schuster, Rudy M.; Marcy, Ann H.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify training topics and distance education technologies preferred by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees. This study was conducted on behalf of the National Conservation Training Center to support their distance education strategy planning and implementation. When selecting survey recipients, we focused on employees in positions involving conservation and environmental education and outreach programming. We conducted the study in two phases. First, we surveyed 72 employees to identify useful training topics. The response rate was 61 percent; respondents were from all regions and included supervisors and nonsupervisors. Five topics for training were identified: creating and maintaining partnerships (partnerships), technology, program planning and development (program planning), outreach methods to engage the community (outreach methods), and evaluation methods. In the second phase, we surveyed 1,488 employees to assess preferences for training among the five topics identified in the first survey and preferences among six distance education technologies: satellite television, video conferencing, audio conferencing, computer mediated training, written resources, and audio resources. Two types of instructor-led training were included on the survey to compare to the technology options. Respondents were asked what types of information, such as basic facts or problem solving skills, were needed for each of the five topics. The adjusted response rate was 64 percent; respondents were from all regions and included supervisors and nonsupervisors. The results indicated clear preferences among respondents for certain training topics and technologies. All five training topics were valued, but the topics of partnerships and technology were given equal value and were valued more than the other three topics. Respondents indicated a desire for training on the topics of partnerships, technology, program planning, and outreach methods. For

A Comparison of Advanced Regression Algorithms for Quantifying Urban Land Cover

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akpona Okujeni

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Quantitative methods for mapping sub-pixel land cover fractions are gaining increasing attention, particularly with regard to upcoming hyperspectral satellite missions. We evaluated five advanced regression algorithms combined with synthetically mixed training data for quantifying urban land cover from HyMap data at 3.6 and 9 m spatial resolution. Methods included support vector regression (SVR, kernel ridge regression (KRR, artificial neural networks (NN, random forest regression (RFR and partial least squares regression (PLSR. Our experiments demonstrate that both kernel methods SVR and KRR yield high accuracies for mapping complex urban surface types, i.e., rooftops, pavements, grass- and tree-covered areas. SVR and KRR models proved to be stable with regard to the spatial and spectral differences between both images and effectively utilized the higher complexity of the synthetic training mixtures for improving estimates for coarser resolution data. Observed deficiencies mainly relate to known problems arising from spectral similarities or shadowing. The remaining regressors either revealed erratic (NN or limited (RFR and PLSR performances when comprehensively mapping urban land cover. Our findings suggest that the combination of kernel-based regression methods, such as SVR and KRR, with synthetically mixed training data is well suited for quantifying urban land cover from imaging spectrometer data at multiple scales.

Land Cover

Data.gov (United States)

Kansas Data Access and Support Center — The Land Cover database depicts 10 general land cover classes for the State of Kansas. The database was compiled from a digital classification of Landsat Thematic...

Evaluation of pulse-oximetry oxygen saturation taken through skin protective covering

Science.gov (United States)

James, Jyotsna; Tiwari, Lokesh; Upadhyay, Pramod; Sreenivas, Vishnubhatla; Bhambhani, Vikas; Puliyel, Jacob M

2006-01-01

Background The hard edges of adult finger clip probes of the pulse oximetry oxygen saturation (POOS) monitor can cause skin damage if used for prolonged periods in a neonate. Covering the skin under the probe with Micropore surgical tape or a gauze piece might prevent such injury. The study was done to see if the protective covering would affect the accuracy of the readings. Methods POOS was studied in 50 full-term neonates in the first week of life. After obtaining consent from their parents the neonates had POOS readings taken directly (standard technique) and through the protective covering. Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the new method with the standard technique. A test of repeatability for each method was also performed. Results The Bland-Altman plots suggest that there is no significant loss of accuracy when readings are taken through the protective covering. The mean difference was 0.06 (SD of 1.39) and 0.04 (SD 1.3) with Micropore and gauze respectively compared to the standard method. The mean difference was 0.22 (SD 0.23) on testing repeatability with the standard method. Conclusion Interposing Micropore or gauze does not significantly affect the accuracy of the POOS reading. The difference between the standard method and the new method was less than the difference seen on testing repeatability of the standard method. PMID:16677394

Partially annotated bibliography for computer protection and related topics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huskamp, J.C.

1976-07-20

References for the commonly cited technical papers in the area of computer protection are given. Great care is taken to exclude papers with no technical content or merit. For the purposes of this bibliography, computer protection is broadly defined to encompass all facets of the protection problem. The papers cover, but are not limited to, the topics of protection features in operating systems (e.g., MULTICS and HYDRA), hardware implementations of protection facilities (e.g., Honeywell 6180, System 250, BCC 5000, B6500), data base protection controls, confinement and protection models. Since computer protection is related to many other areas in computer science and electrical engineering, a bibliography of related areas is included after the protection bibliography. These sections also include articles of general interest in the named areas which are not necessarily related to protection.

Soaps and Germicides as Adjunct Topical Antimycotic Agents on ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Objective: The study aims at evaluating the potentials of soaps and germicides / disinfectants as adjunct topical anti-vulvovaginal candidasis agents. Methods: In vitro inhibitory activities of the test agents, prepared according to the manufacturer's specification for toilet and midwifery purposes were determined using modified ...

Tree Cover Mapping Tool—Documentation and user manual

Science.gov (United States)

Cotillon, Suzanne E.; Mathis, Melissa L.

2016-06-02

The Tree Cover Mapping (TCM) tool was developed by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center to allow a user to quickly map tree cover density over large areas using visual interpretation of high resolution imagery within a geographic information system interface. The TCM tool uses a systematic sample grid to produce maps of tree cover. The TCM tool allows the user to define sampling parameters to estimate tree cover within each sample unit. This mapping method generated the first on-farm tree cover maps of vast regions of Niger and Burkina Faso. The approach contributes to implementing integrated landscape management to scale up re-greening and restore degraded land in the drylands of Africa. The TCM tool is easy to operate, practical, and can be adapted to many other applications such as crop mapping, settlements mapping, or other features. This user manual provides step-by-step instructions for installing and using the tool, and creating tree cover maps. Familiarity with ArcMap tools and concepts is helpful for using the tool.

Topical report review status: Volume 10

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-03-01

This report provides industry with procedures for submitting topical reports, guidance on how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) processes and responds to topical report submittals, and an accounting, with review schedules, of all topical reports currently accepted for review by the NRC. This report is published annually

Non-adherence to topical treatments for actinic keratosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shergill B

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Bav Shergill,1 Simon Zokaie,2 Alison J Carr3 1Department of Dermatology, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, Elm Grove, Brighton, UK; 2Leo Pharma, Princes Risborough, 3Hamell, London, UK Background: There is limited information on the patterns of use, adherence rates, and factors that impact adherence with topical treatments for actinic keratosis (AK. Objectives: To establish patterns of use and adherence with topical treatments for AK and to identify treatment-related factors that impact on adherence. Methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study was performed using a standardized questionnaire completed online or via telephone interview. Patients were stratified according to the presence of AK lesions on the scalp and/or other extremities; and presence of scarring resulting from treatment. Results: This study included 305 patients with AK who were currently using a patient-applied topical therapy for AK or had used one within the previous 12 months. In total, 88% (n = 268/305 of patients were either non-adherent, non-persistent or both non-adherent and non-persistent to topical therapy. Duration of treatment was associated with increasing rates of non-adherence (adjusted odds ratio [OR]; for treatment durations greater than 4 weeks, 2.2, P < 0.01: 52% of patients were non-adherent with 3–4 week treatment duration; 69% of patients with 4–8 week treatment duration; and 71% of patients with 6–12 week treatment duration. There were similar increases in non-persistence with increasing treatment duration (adjusted OR; for treatment durations greater than 4 weeks, 2.1, P < 0.05. Conclusion: This study found high rates of non-adherence and non-persistence in patients with AK. Duration of treatment was a significant factor contributing to non-adherence and non-persistence to topical treatments. Patient-applied topical therapies that require less frequent application and have shorter treatment duration may be associated with improved

Biocompatibility of a new device of self-expandable covered and non-covered tracheal stent: comparative study in rats

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olavo Ribeiro Rodrigues

2013-01-01

Full Text Available PURPOSE: To investigate the compatibility of a new model of self-expandable tracheal stent in rats. METHODS: A new device of polyurethane covered and non - covered stent was placed in the trachea of Wistar rats. Animals were distributed in two groups: the polyurethane covered and non-covered group. Macroscopic parameters included position within the tracheal lumen, adherence to the mucosa, degree of dilatation, permeability and internal diameter. Microscopic findings evaluated were: incorporation, inflammatory activity, granulation tissue and epithelial revetment injuries. The observation follow-up was six weeks. All parameters were quantified based on determined score values. Incorporation of the stents was evaluated based on the observation if the stent was fixed into the trachea or if it could be removed. Degree of dilatation was performed by external diameter measurements. Granulation tissue was evaluated by measurements of height of the tissue growing into the tracheal lumen. RESULTS: 100% of non-covered stents had total attachment to mucosa and 100% of polyurethane covered type had adherence only. Regarding dilatation, granulation tissue, inflammatory activity and internal diameter measurements, there were no significant differences between the groups. Pathological tracheal wall injuries were present in both groups. CONCLUSION: Both models of stent demonstrated biocompatibility with the trachea. Rats are suitable for an experimental model of tracheal stent study.

Chiropractic: MedlinePlus Health Topic

Science.gov (United States)

... for back pain (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Chiropractic updates by ... ENCYCLOPEDIA Chiropractic care for back pain Related Health Topics Back Pain Complementary and Integrative Medicine National Institutes ...

Diets: MedlinePlus Health Topic

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... Spanish Mediterranean diet (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Diets updates by ... foods Diet-busting foods Mediterranean diet Related Health Topics Child Nutrition DASH Eating Plan Diabetic Diet Nutrition ...

Colonoscopy: MedlinePlus Health Topic

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... Spanish Virtual colonoscopy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Colonoscopy updates by ... Colonoscopy Colonoscopy discharge Sigmoidoscopy Virtual colonoscopy Related Health Topics Colonic Diseases Colonic Polyps Colorectal Cancer National Institutes ...

Dialysis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

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... access for hemodialysis (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Dialysis updates by ... for hemodialysis Show More Show Less Related Health Topics Creatinine Kidney Cysts Kidney Failure Peritoneal Disorders National ...

Menopause: MedlinePlus Health Topic

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... Spanish What is Menopause? (National Institute on Aging) Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Menopause updates by ... test Menopause Types of hormone therapy Related Health Topics Hormone Replacement Therapy Menstruation Premature Ovarian Failure National ...

Vaginitis: MedlinePlus Health Topic

Science.gov (United States)

... Spanish Vulvovaginitis - overview (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Vaginitis updates by ... Vaginitis test - wet mount Vulvovaginitis - overview Related Health Topics Trichomoniasis Vaginal Diseases Yeast Infections Other Languages Find ...

Potential of Topical Curcumin in Reduction of TNF-α expression and Synovium Hyperplasia on Wistar Rats of Rheumatoid Arthritis Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ferri Widodo

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease associated with articular and systemic effects. This disease affects synovial joints covered by a special tissue called synovium. Curcumin has a potent antioxidant, antiinflammatory agent, antiangiogenic and anticarcinogenic. Curcumin can downregulate the expression of various proinflammatory cytokines and is reported beneficial effects in arthritis, but has a poor solubility dan bioavailability as well. The purpose of this research was to study the potential of liposomes topikal curcumin in reducing athritis score, reducing the expression of TNF-α and histopathological synovium hyperplasia of hind paw on Wistar rats with CFA that had been treated with topical curcumin. In this study, rats were divided into 7 groups: positive control, negative control, rheumatoid arthritis with topical curcumin therapy of 90 mg/kg BW, rheumatoid arthritis with topical curcumin therapy of 110 mg/kg BW, rheumatoid arthritis with topical curcumin therapy of 200 mg/kg BW, rheumatoid arthritis with methotrexate therapy, rheumatoid arthritis with placebo therapy. Results from this experiment indicated that topical curcumin has no significant to the arthritis score, significantly effect to percentase expression of TNF-α (p<0.05 and could decrease synovium hyperplasia based on histophatology examination. It could be concluded that therapy of topical curcumin could decrease the expression of TNF- α and synovium hyperplasia in rheumatoid arthritis rat.

Trends in the investigation of social determinants of health: selected themes and methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roger Keller Celeste

2011-01-01

Full Text Available We analyze bibliometric trends of topics relevant to the epidemiologic research of social determinants of health. A search of the PubMed database, covering the period 1985-2007, was performed for the topics: socioeconomic factors, sex, race/ethnicity, discrimination/prejudice, social capital/support, lifecourse, income inequality, stress, behavioral research, contextual effects, residential segregation, multilevel modeling, regression based indices to measure inequalities, and structural equation modeling/causal diagrams/path analysis. The absolute, but not the relative, frequency of publications increased for all themes. Total publications in PubMed increased 2.3 times, while the subsets of epidemiology/public health and social epidemiologic themes/methods increased by factors of 5.3 and 5.2, respectively. Only multilevel and contextual analyses had a growth over and above that observed for epidemiology/public health. We conclude that there is clearly room for wider use of established techniques, and for new methods to emerge when they satisfy theoretical needs.

Topical Acne Treatments and Pregnancy

Science.gov (United States)

Topical Acne Treatments In every pregnancy, a woman starts out with a 3-5% chance of having a baby ... This sheet talks about whether exposure to topical acne treatments may increase the risk for birth defects ...

Symbiosis: Rich, Exciting, Neglected Topic

Science.gov (United States)

Rowland, Jane Thomas

1974-01-01

Argues that the topic of symbiosis has been greatly neglected and underemphasized in general-biology textbooks. Discusses many types and examples of symbiosis, and provides an extensive bibliography of the literature related to this topic. (JR)

Regional forest cover estimation via remote sensing: the calibration center concept

Science.gov (United States)

Louis R. Iverson; Elizabeth A. Cook; Robin L. Graham; Robin L. Graham

1994-01-01

A method for combining Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery, and other biogeographic data to estimate forest cover over large regions is applied and evaluated at two locations. In this method, TM data are used to classify a small area (calibration center) into forest/nonforest; the resulting forest cover map is then...

Fluorescence imaging to quantify crop residue cover

Science.gov (United States)

Daughtry, C. S. T.; Mcmurtrey, J. E., III; Chappelle, E. W.

1994-01-01

Crop residues, the portion of the crop left in the field after harvest, can be an important management factor in controlling soil erosion. Methods to quantify residue cover are needed that are rapid, accurate, and objective. Scenes with known amounts of crop residue were illuminated with long wave ultraviolet (UV) radiation and fluorescence images were recorded with an intensified video camera fitted with a 453 to 488 nm band pass filter. A light colored soil and a dark colored soil were used as background for the weathered soybean stems. Residue cover was determined by counting the proportion of the pixels in the image with fluorescence values greater than a threshold. Soil pixels had the lowest gray levels in the images. The values of the soybean residue pixels spanned nearly the full range of the 8-bit video data. Classification accuracies typically were within 3(absolute units) of measured cover values. Video imaging can provide an intuitive understanding of the fraction of the soil covered by residue.

Prediabetes:MedlinePlus Health Topic

Science.gov (United States)

... in Spanish Prediabetes (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Prediabetes updates by ... Glucose tolerance test - non-pregnant Prediabetes Related Health Topics A1C Diabetes Diabetes in Children and Teens Diabetes ...

Diabetes: MedlinePlus Health Topic

Science.gov (United States)

... High blood sugar (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish Topic Image MedlinePlus Email Updates Get Diabetes updates by ... ketones test Show More Show Less Related Health Topics A1C Blood Sugar Diabetes and Pregnancy Diabetes Complications ...

Update on the Systemic Risks of Superpotent Topical Steroids.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakamura, Mio; Abrouk, Michael; Zhu, Henry; Farahnik, Benjamin; Koo, John; Bhutani, Tina

2017-07-01

INTRODUCTION: The potential for systemic effects due to percutaneous absorption of superpotent topical steroids has been a longstanding concern. The Food and Drug Administration currently recommends limiting the use of superpotent topical steroids to 50g per week for 2 or 4 consecutive weeks depending on the formulation, which is mostly based on the exact duration with which phase 3 clinical trials were allowed to be conducted per the FDA. This article reviews all published clinical incidence of adrenal adverse effects in the medical literature, specifically Cushing's syndrome (CS) and pathologic adrenal suppression (PAAS), to try to ascertain a more realistic limit for the safe use of superpotent topical steroids as it pertains to its potential systemic effects. METHODS: Literature search was conducted using PubMed. Only cases of CS and PAAS secondary to the use of Class I superpotent topical steroids were included. Pediatric cases and full articles unavailable in English were excluded. RESULTS: There were a total of 14 cases of CS and 5 cases of subsequent PAAS found in the current literature. DISCUSSION: From our review of these cases, if the amount used per week is within FDA guidelines, it appears that patients needed to use superpotent topical steroids for far greater than 2 or 4 weeks to develop CS or PAAS. CS did not necessarily predict occurrence of PAAS, but in all cases CS appeared to be a prerequisite for developing PAAS. All cases of CS and all but one case of PAAS were reversible. If excessive amount of greater than 50g per week is avoided, it appears that superpotent topical steroids may be safe to use consecutively for months, perhaps even years, without causing systemic effects. J Drugs Dermatol. 2017;16(7):643-648..

Selected topics in phenomenology of the standard model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roberts, R.G.

1991-01-01

These lectures cover some aspects of phenomenology of topics in high energy physics which advertise the success of the standard model in dealing with a wide variety of experimental data. First we begin with a look at deep inelastic scattering. This tells us about the structure of the nucleon, which is understood in terms of the SU(3) gauge theory of QCD, which then allows the information on quark and gluon distributions to be carried over to other 'hard' processes such as hadronic production of jets. Recent data on electroweak processes can estimate the value of Sin 2 θw to a precision where the inclusion of radiative corrections allow bounds to be made on the mass of the top quark. Electroweak effects arise in e + e - collisions, but we first present a review of the recent history of this topic within the context of QCD. We bring the subject up to date with a look at the physics at (or near) the Z pole where the measurement of asymmetries can give more information. We look at the conventional description of quark mixing by the CKM matrix and see how the mixing parameters are systematically being extracted from a variety of reactions and decays. In turn, the values can be used to set bounds on the top quark mass. The matter of CP violation in weak interactions is addressed within the context of the standard model, recent data on ε'/ε being the source of current excitement. Finally, we at the theoretical description and experimental efforts to search for the top quark. (author)

Interrelationships between soil cover and plant cover depending on land use

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tiina Köster

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Interrelationships between soil cover and plant cover of normally developed (or postlithogenic mineral soils are analysed on the basis of four sampling soil groups. The four-link pedo-ecological sequence of analysed soils, rendzinas → brown soils → pseudopodzolic soils → gley-podzols, forms a representative cross section in relation to the normal mineral soils of Estonia. All groups differ substantially from each other in terms of soil properties (calcareousness, acidity, nutrition conditions, profile fabric and humus cover. The primary tasks of the research were (1 to elucidate the main pedo-ecological characteristics of the four soil groups and their suitability for plant cover, (2 to evaluate comparatively soils in terms of productivity, sustainability, biodiversity and environmental protection ability and (3 to analyse possibilities for ecologically sound matching of soil cover with suitable plant cover. On the basis of the same material, the influence of land-use change on humus cover (epipedon fabric, properties of the entire soil cover and soil–plant interrelationship were also analysed. An ecosystem approach enables us to observe particularities caused by specific properties of a soil type (species, variety in biological turnover and in the formation of biodiversity.

Tracking topic birth and death in LDA.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wilson, Andrew T.; Robinson, David Gerald

2011-09-01

Most topic modeling algorithms that address the evolution of documents over time use the same number of topics at all times. This obscures the common occurrence in the data where new subjects arise and old ones diminish or disappear entirely. We propose an algorithm to model the birth and death of topics within an LDA-like framework. The user selects an initial number of topics, after which new topics are created and retired without further supervision. Our approach also accommodates many of the acceleration and parallelization schemes developed in recent years for standard LDA. In recent years, topic modeling algorithms such as latent semantic analysis (LSA)[17], latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)[10] and their descendants have offered a powerful way to explore and interrogate corpora far too large for any human to grasp without assistance. Using such algorithms we are able to search for similar documents, model and track the volume of topics over time, search for correlated topics or model them with a hierarchy. Most of these algorithms are intended for use with static corpora where the number of documents and the size of the vocabulary are known in advance. Moreover, almost all current topic modeling algorithms fix the number of topics as one of the input parameters and keep it fixed across the entire corpus. While this is appropriate for static corpora, it becomes a serious handicap when analyzing time-varying data sets where topics come and go as a matter of course. This is doubly true for online algorithms that may not have the option of revising earlier results in light of new data. To be sure, these algorithms will account for changing data one way or another, but without the ability to adapt to structural changes such as entirely new topics they may do so in counterintuitive ways.

Fast reactor primary cover gas system proposals for CDFR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harrison, L.M.T.

1987-01-01

A primary sodium gas cover has been designed for CDFR, it comprises plant to maintain and control; cover gas pressure for all reactor operating at fault conditions, cover gas purity by both blowdown and by a special clean-up facility and the clean argon supply for the failed fuel detection system and the primary pump seal purge. The design philosophy is to devise a cover gas system that can be specified for any LMFBR where only features like vessel and pipework size need to be altered to suit different design and operating conditions. The choice of full power and shutdown operating pressures is derived and the method chosen to control these values is described. A part active/part passive system is proposed for this duty, a surge volume of 250 m 3 gives passive control between full power and hot shutdown. Pressure control operation criteria is presented for various reactor operating conditions. A design for a sodium aerosol filter, based on that used on PFR is presented, it is specifically designed so that it can be fitted with an etched disc type particulate filter and maintenance is minimised. Two methods that maintain cover gas purity are described. The first, used during normal reactor operation with a small impurities ingress, utilises the continuous blowdown associated with the inevitable clean argon purge through the various reactor component seals. The second method physically removes the impurities xenon and krypton from the cover gas by their adsorption, at cryogenic temperature, onto a bed of activated carbon. The equipment required for these two duties and their mode of operation is described with the aid of a system flow diagram. The primary pump seals requires a gas purge to suppress aerosol migration. A system where the argon used for this task is recirculated and partially purified is described. (author)

Mining Adverse Events of Dietary Supplements from Product Labels by Topic Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yefeng; Gunashekar, Divya R.; Adam, Terrence J.; Zhang, Rui

2018-01-01

The adverse events of the dietary supplements should be subject to scrutiny due to their growing clinical application and consumption among U.S. adults. An effective method for mining and grouping the adverse events of the dietary supplements is to evaluate product labeling for the rapidly increasing number of new products available in the market. In this study, the adverse events information was extracted from the product labels stored in the Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) and analyzed by topic modeling techniques, specifically Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Among the 50 topics generated by LDA, eight topics were manually evaluated, with topic relatedness ranging from 58.8% to 100% on the product level, and 57.1% to 100% on the ingredient level. Five out of these eight topics were coherent groupings of the dietary supplements based on their adverse events. The results demonstrated that LDA is able to group supplements with similar adverse events based on the dietary supplement labels. Such information can be potentially used by consumers to more safely use dietary supplements. PMID:29295169

Mathematical methods in engineering