A Signal Processing Method to Explore Similarity in Protein Flexibility

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Simina Vasilache

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Understanding mechanisms of protein flexibility is of great importance to structural biology. The ability to detect similarities between proteins and their patterns is vital in discovering new information about unknown protein functions. A Distance Constraint Model (DCM provides a means to generate a variety of flexibility measures based on a given protein structure. Although information about mechanical properties of flexibility is critical for understanding protein function for a given protein, the question of whether certain characteristics are shared across homologous proteins is difficult to assess. For a proper assessment, a quantified measure of similarity is necessary. This paper begins to explore image processing techniques to quantify similarities in signals and images that characterize protein flexibility. The dataset considered here consists of three different families of proteins, with three proteins in each family. The similarities and differences found within flexibility measures across homologous proteins do not align with sequence-based evolutionary methods.

The Cultural Argument for Understanding Nature of Science. A Chance to Reflect on Similarities and Differences Between Science and Humanities

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Reiners, Christiane S.; Bliersbach, Markus; Marniok, Karl

2017-07-01

Understanding Nature of Science (NOS) is a central component of scientific literacy, which is agreed upon internationally, and consequently has been a major educational goal for many years all over the globe. In order to justify the promotion of an adequate understanding of NOS, educators have developed several arguments, among them the cultural argument. But what is behind this argument? In order to answer this question, C. P. Snow's vision of two cultures was used as a starting point. In his famous Rede Lecture from 1959, he complained about a wide gap between the arts and humanities on the one hand and sciences on the other hand. While the representatives of the humanities refer to themselves as real intellectuals, the scientists felt rather ignored as a culture, despite the fact that their achievements had been so important for Western society. Thus, Snow argued that as these intellectual cultures were completely different from each other, a mutual understanding was impossible. The first European Regional IHPST Conference took up the cultural view on science again. Thus, the topic of the conference "Science as Culture in the European Context" encouraged us to look at the two cultures and to figure out possibilities to bridge the gap between them in chemistry teacher education. For this reason, we put together three studies—one theoretical and two independent research projects (one dealing with creativity in science, the other with scientific laws and theories) which contribute to our main research field (promoting an understanding of NOS)—in order to address the cultural argument for understanding science from an educational point of view. Among the consented tenets of what understanding NOS implies in an educational context, there are aspects which are associated mainly with the humanities, like the tentativeness of knowledge, creativity, and social tradition, whereas others seem to have a domain-specific meaning, like empirical evidence, theories and laws

Metamemory Development: Understanding the Role of Similarity in False Memories

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Jaswal, Vikram K.; Dodson, Chad S.

2009-01-01

Research on the development of metamemory has focused primarily on children's understanding of the variables that influence how likely a person is to remember something. But metamemory also involves an understanding of why people occasionally misremember things. In this study, 5- and 6-year-olds (N = 38) were asked to decide whether another…

A Similarity Analysis of Audio Signal to Develop a Human Activity Recognition Using Similarity Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alejandra García-Hernández

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Human Activity Recognition (HAR is one of the main subjects of study in the areas of computer vision and machine learning due to the great benefits that can be achieved. Examples of the study areas are: health prevention, security and surveillance, automotive research, and many others. The proposed approaches are carried out using machine learning techniques and present good results. However, it is difficult to observe how the descriptors of human activities are grouped. In order to obtain a better understanding of the the behavior of descriptors, it is important to improve the abilities to recognize the human activities. This paper proposes a novel approach for the HAR based on acoustic data and similarity networks. In this approach, we were able to characterize the sound of the activities and identify those activities looking for similarity in the sound pattern. We evaluated the similarity of the sounds considering mainly two features: the sound location and the materials that were used. As a result, the materials are a good reference classifying the human activities compared with the location.

Perceptions of Ideal and Former Partners’ Personality and Similarity

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Pieternel Dijkstra

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The present study aimed to test predictions based on both the ‗similarity-attraction‘ hypothesis and the ‗attraction-similarity‘ hypothesis, by studying perceptions of ideal and former partners. Based on the ‗similarity-attraction‘ hypothesis, we expected individuals to desire ideal partners who are similar to the self in personality. In addition, based on the ‗attraction-similarity hypothesis‘, we expected individuals to perceive former partners as dissimilar to them in terms of personality. Findings showed that, whereas the ideal partner was seen as similar to and more positive than the self, the former partner was seen as dissimilar to and more negative than the self. In addition, our study showed that individuals did not rate similarity in personality as very important when seeking a mate. Our findings may help understand why so many relationships end in divorce due to mismatches in personality.

Simulation and similarity using models to understand the world

CERN Document Server

Weisberg, Michael

2013-01-01

In the 1950s, John Reber convinced many Californians that the best way to solve the state's water shortage problem was to dam up the San Francisco Bay. Against massive political pressure, Reber's opponents persuaded lawmakers that doing so would lead to disaster. They did this not by empirical measurement alone, but also through the construction of a model. Simulation and Similarity explains why this was a good strategy while simultaneously providing an account of modeling and idealization in modern scientific practice. Michael Weisberg focuses on concrete, mathematical, and computational models in his consideration of the nature of models, the practice of modeling, and nature of the relationship between models and real-world phenomena. In addition to a careful analysis of physical, computational, and mathematical models, Simulation and Similarity offers a novel account of the model/world relationship. Breaking with the dominant tradition, which favors the analysis of this relation through logical notions suc...

[-25]A Similarity Analysis of Audio Signal to Develop a Human Activity Recognition Using Similarity Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Hernández, Alejandra; Galván-Tejada, Carlos E; Galván-Tejada, Jorge I; Celaya-Padilla, José M; Gamboa-Rosales, Hamurabi; Velasco-Elizondo, Perla; Cárdenas-Vargas, Rogelio

2017-11-21

Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is one of the main subjects of study in the areas of computer vision and machine learning due to the great benefits that can be achieved. Examples of the study areas are: health prevention, security and surveillance, automotive research, and many others. The proposed approaches are carried out using machine learning techniques and present good results. However, it is difficult to observe how the descriptors of human activities are grouped. In order to obtain a better understanding of the the behavior of descriptors, it is important to improve the abilities to recognize the human activities. This paper proposes a novel approach for the HAR based on acoustic data and similarity networks. In this approach, we were able to characterize the sound of the activities and identify those activities looking for similarity in the sound pattern. We evaluated the similarity of the sounds considering mainly two features: the sound location and the materials that were used. As a result, the materials are a good reference classifying the human activities compared with the location.

Measuring Test Case Similarity to Support Test Suite Understanding

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Greiler, M.S.; Van Deursen, A.; Zaidman, A.E.

2012-01-01

Preprint of paper published in: TOOLS 2012 - Proceedings of the 50th International Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, May 29-31, 2012; doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30561-0_8 In order to support test suite understanding, we investigate whether we can automatically derive relations between test cases. In

Image Registration of Cochlear µCT Data Using Heat Distribution Similarity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjer, Hans Martin; Vera, Sergio; Fagertun, Jens

2015-01-01

Better understanding of the anatomical variability of the human cochlear is important for the design and function of Cochlear Implants. Good non-rigid alignment of high-resolution cochlear μCT data is a challenging task. In this paper we study the use of heat distribution similarity between sampl...

The Similarities of the Mean between Confucius and Aristotle

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

苗亚男; 庄梦琪

2017-01-01

The doctrine of the Mean is praised by Aristotle and Confucius. It has an important academic position in ethics theories both in the Western and Eastern philosophical fields. Having a better understanding of the doctrine of the Mean will benefit us in further study of virtuous ethical theories. By comparison, we can discover that the thoughts of Confucius and Aristotle have many similar places.

Phenomenological 'Verstehen' and interactionist 'sympathetic understanding': similarities and differences

OpenAIRE

Verhoeven, Jef

1991-01-01

Herbert Blumer, albeit accepting some similarities, did see clear differences between "symbolic interactionism" and "phenomenology". His main criticisms concerned the introspection of phenomenology and consequently the solipsism of this approach. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity in this interview to go into this problem more thoroughly. I want to resume this discussion here. As far as I have been abie to determine, the topic has not yet been treated in detail elsewhere. There has been ...

Bringing norms back in: A theoretical and empirical discussion of their importance for understanding demographic behaviour

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liefbroer, A.C.; Billari, F.C.

2010-01-01

Although the life-course perspective emphasizes the importance of the concept of social norms for understanding demographic choices, the usefulness of this concept is heavily debated. In particular, it has been questioned whether social norms are still important in post-modern societies, and whether

Understanding mothers' perceptions of what is important about themselves and parenting.

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Riesch, S K; Coleman, R; Glowacki, J S; Konings, K

1997-01-01

The purpose of this article is to report what mothers of young adolescents perceive as important about themselves and parenting. Their perceptions were identified from brief written statements from a sample of 538 mothers of young adolescents. The women's statements were analyzed using content analysis techniques. Six themes emerged. Mothers described the challenges of putting their ideals about parenting into practice, including incorporating or discarding the influence of their own upbringing and the seeking of knowledge and skills to improve their parenting. Mothers described their values and goals. Feelings of self-doubt were made apparent through self-critical comments. Expressions of frustration were evident as were the serious life stressors managed by the sample. Repeated comments identified mothers' emphases on the importance of open family communication. Mothers had developed styles of parenting based on decision-making methods and understanding the child's perspective. We suggest community health nurses use the themes as guidelines for anticipatory guidance with families during adolescence.

The importance of interlinguistic similarity and stable bilingualism when two languages compete

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mira, J; Seoane, L F; Nieto, J J

2011-01-01

One approach for analyzing the dynamics of two languages in competition is to fit historical data for the number of speakers of each with a mathematical model in which the parameters are interpreted as the similarity between those languages and their relative status. Within this approach, on the basis of a detailed analysis and extensive calculations, we show the outcomes that can emerge for given values of these parameters. In contrast to previous results, it is possible that in the long term both languages may coexist and survive. This happens only where there is a stable bilingual group, and this is possible only if the competing languages are sufficiently similar, in which case its occurrence is favoured by both similarity and status symmetry.

The importance of interlinguistic similarity and stable bilingualism when two languages compete

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mira, J; Seoane, L F [Departamento de Fisica Aplicada, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Nieto, J J, E-mail: jorge.mira@usc.es [Departamento de Analise Matematica and Instituto de Matematicas, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

2011-03-15

One approach for analyzing the dynamics of two languages in competition is to fit historical data for the number of speakers of each with a mathematical model in which the parameters are interpreted as the similarity between those languages and their relative status. Within this approach, on the basis of a detailed analysis and extensive calculations, we show the outcomes that can emerge for given values of these parameters. In contrast to previous results, it is possible that in the long term both languages may coexist and survive. This happens only where there is a stable bilingual group, and this is possible only if the competing languages are sufficiently similar, in which case its occurrence is favoured by both similarity and status symmetry.

The importance of interlinguistic similarity and stable bilingualism when two languages compete

Science.gov (United States)

Mira, J.; Seoane, L. F.; Nieto, J. J.

2011-03-01

One approach for analyzing the dynamics of two languages in competition is to fit historical data for the number of speakers of each with a mathematical model in which the parameters are interpreted as the similarity between those languages and their relative status. Within this approach, on the basis of a detailed analysis and extensive calculations, we show the outcomes that can emerge for given values of these parameters. In contrast to previous results, it is possible that in the long term both languages may coexist and survive. This happens only where there is a stable bilingual group, and this is possible only if the competing languages are sufficiently similar, in which case its occurrence is favoured by both similarity and status symmetry.

Automatic Content Creation for Games to Train Students Distinguishing Similar Chinese Characters

Science.gov (United States)

Lai, Kwong-Hung; Leung, Howard; Tang, Jeff K. T.

In learning Chinese, many students often have the problem of mixing up similar characters. This can cause misunderstanding and miscommunication in daily life. It is thus important for students learning the Chinese language to be able to distinguish similar characters and understand their proper usage. In this paper, we propose a game style framework in which the game content in identifying similar Chinese characters in idioms and words is created automatically. Our prior work on analyzing students’ Chinese handwriting can be applied in the similarity measure of Chinese characters. We extend this work by adding the component of radical extraction to speed up the search process. Experimental results show that the proposed method is more accurate and faster in finding more similar Chinese characters compared with the baseline method without considering the radical information.

Tackling childhood obesity: the importance of understanding the context.

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Knai, Cécile; McKee, Martin

2010-12-01

Recommendations to tackle major health problems such as childhood obesity may not be appropriate if they fail to take account of the prevailing socio-political, cultural and economic context. We describe the development and application of a qualitative risk analysis approach to identify non-scientific considerations framing the policy response to obesity in Denmark and Latvia. Interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Denmark and Latvia, undertaken following a review of relevant literature on obesity and national policies. A qualitative risk analysis model was developed to help explain the findings in the light of national context. Non-scientific considerations that appeared to influence the response to obesity include the perceived relative importance of childhood obesity; the nature of stakeholder relations and its impact on decision-making; the place of obesity on the policy agenda; the legitimacy of the state to act for population health and views on alliances between public and private sectors. Better recognition of the exogenous factors affecting policy-making may lead to a more adequate policy response. The development and use of a qualitative risk analysis model enabled a better understanding of the contextual factors and processes influencing the response to childhood obesity in each country.

Automatic Online Educational Game Content Creation by Identifying Similar Chinese Characters with Radical Extraction and Graph Matching Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Lai, Jason Kwong-Hung; Leung, Howard; Hu, Zhi-Hui; Tang, Jeff K. T.; Xu, Yun

2010-01-01

One of the difficulties in learning Chinese characters is distinguishing similar characters. This can cause misunderstanding and miscommunication in daily life. Thus, it is important for students learning the Chinese language to be able to distinguish similar characters and understand their proper usage. In this paper, the authors propose a game…

A COMPARISON OF SEMANTIC SIMILARITY MODELS IN EVALUATING CONCEPT SIMILARITY

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Q. X. Xu

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The semantic similarities are important in concept definition, recognition, categorization, interpretation, and integration. Many semantic similarity models have been established to evaluate semantic similarities of objects or/and concepts. To find out the suitability and performance of different models in evaluating concept similarities, we make a comparison of four main types of models in this paper: the geometric model, the feature model, the network model, and the transformational model. Fundamental principles and main characteristics of these models are introduced and compared firstly. Land use and land cover concepts of NLCD92 are employed as examples in the case study. The results demonstrate that correlations between these models are very high for a possible reason that all these models are designed to simulate the similarity judgement of human mind.

Personalized recommendation with corrected similarity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu, Xuzhen; Tian, Hui; Cai, Shimin

2014-01-01

Personalized recommendation has attracted a surge of interdisciplinary research. Especially, similarity-based methods in applications of real recommendation systems have achieved great success. However, the computations of similarities are overestimated or underestimated, in particular because of the defective strategy of unidirectional similarity estimation. In this paper, we solve this drawback by leveraging mutual correction of forward and backward similarity estimations, and propose a new personalized recommendation index, i.e., corrected similarity based inference (CSI). Through extensive experiments on four benchmark datasets, the results show a greater improvement of CSI in comparison with these mainstream baselines. And a detailed analysis is presented to unveil and understand the origin of such difference between CSI and mainstream indices. (paper)

From Headline to Hard Grind: The Importance of Understanding Public Administration in Achieving Health Outcomes

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O’Flynn, Janine

2016-01-01

Many public policy programs fail to translate ambitious headlines to on-the-ground action. The reasons for this are many and varied, but for public administration and management scholars a large part of the gap between ambition and achievement is the challenge associated with the operation of the machinery of government itself, and how it relates to the other parties that it relies on to fulfill these outcomes. In their article, Carey and Friel set out key reasons why public health scholars should seek to better understand important ideas in public administration. In commenting on their contribution, I draw out two critical questions that are raised by this discussion: (i) what are boundaries and what forms do they take? and (ii) why work across boundaries? Expanding on these key questions extends the points made by Carey and Friel on the importance of understanding public administration and will better place public health scholars and practitioners to realise health outcomes. PMID:27694672

Structural similarities and differences between the human and the mouse pancreas

Science.gov (United States)

Dolenšek, Jurij; Rupnik, Marjan Slak; Stožer, Andraž

2015-01-01

Mice remain the most studied animal model in pancreas research. Since the findings of this research are typically extrapolated to humans, it is important to understand both similarities and differences between the 2 species. Beside the apparent difference in size and macroscopic organization of the organ in the 2 species, there are a number of less evident and only recently described differences in organization of the acinar and ductal exocrine tissue, as well as in the distribution, composition, and architecture of the endocrine islets of Langerhans. Furthermore, the differences in arterial, venous, and lymphatic vessels, as well as innervation are potentially important. In this article, the structure of the human and the mouse pancreas, together with the similarities and differences between them are reviewed in detail in the light of conceivable repercussions for basic research and clinical application. PMID:26030186

A Profile-Based Framework for Factorial Similarity and the Congruence Coefficient.

Science.gov (United States)

Hartley, Anselma G; Furr, R Michael

2017-01-01

We present a novel profile-based framework for understanding factorial similarity in the context of exploratory factor analysis in general, and for understanding the congruence coefficient (a commonly used index of factor similarity) specifically. First, we introduce the profile-based framework articulating factorial similarity in terms of 3 intuitive components: general saturation similarity, differential saturation similarity, and configural similarity. We then articulate the congruence coefficient in terms of these components, along with 2 additional profile-based components, and we explain how these components resolve ambiguities that can be-and are-found when using the congruence coefficient. Finally, we present secondary analyses revealing that profile-based components of factorial are indeed linked to experts' actual evaluations of factorial similarity. Overall, the profile-based approach we present offers new insights into the ways in which researchers can examine factor similarity and holds the potential to enhance researchers' ability to understand the congruence coefficient.

A similarity based agglomerative clustering algorithm in networks

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhiyuan; Wang, Xiujuan; Ma, Yinghong

2018-04-01

The detection of clusters is benefit for understanding the organizations and functions of networks. Clusters, or communities, are usually groups of nodes densely interconnected but sparsely linked with any other clusters. To identify communities, an efficient and effective community agglomerative algorithm based on node similarity is proposed. The proposed method initially calculates similarities between each pair of nodes, and form pre-partitions according to the principle that each node is in the same community as its most similar neighbor. After that, check each partition whether it satisfies community criterion. For the pre-partitions who do not satisfy, incorporate them with others that having the biggest attraction until there are no changes. To measure the attraction ability of a partition, we propose an attraction index that based on the linked node's importance in networks. Therefore, our proposed method can better exploit the nodes' properties and network's structure. To test the performance of our algorithm, both synthetic and empirical networks ranging in different scales are tested. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain superior clustering results compared with six other widely used community detection algorithms.

Protein-protein interaction network-based detection of functionally similar proteins within species.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Baoxing; Wang, Fen; Guo, Yang; Sang, Qing; Liu, Min; Li, Dengyun; Fang, Wei; Zhang, Deli

2012-07-01

Although functionally similar proteins across species have been widely studied, functionally similar proteins within species showing low sequence similarity have not been examined in detail. Identification of these proteins is of significant importance for understanding biological functions, evolution of protein families, progression of co-evolution, and convergent evolution and others which cannot be obtained by detection of functionally similar proteins across species. Here, we explored a method of detecting functionally similar proteins within species based on graph theory. After denoting protein-protein interaction networks using graphs, we split the graphs into subgraphs using the 1-hop method. Proteins with functional similarities in a species were detected using a method of modified shortest path to compare these subgraphs and to find the eligible optimal results. Using seven protein-protein interaction networks and this method, some functionally similar proteins with low sequence similarity that cannot detected by sequence alignment were identified. By analyzing the results, we found that, sometimes, it is difficult to separate homologous from convergent evolution. Evaluation of the performance of our method by gene ontology term overlap showed that the precision of our method was excellent. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Similarity system theory to evaluate similarity of chromatographic fingerprints of traditional Chinese medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yongsuo; Meng, Qinghua; Jiang, Shumin; Hu, Yuzhu

2005-03-01

The similarity evaluation of the fingerprints is one of the most important problems in the quality control of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Similarity measures used to evaluate the similarity of the common peaks in the chromatogram of TCM have been discussed. Comparative studies were carried out among correlation coefficient, cosine of the angle and an improved extent similarity method using simulated data and experimental data. Correlation coefficient and cosine of the angle are not sensitive to the differences of the data set. They are still not sensitive to the differences of the data even after normalization. According to the similarity system theory, an improved extent similarity method was proposed. The improved extent similarity is more sensitive to the differences of the data sets than correlation coefficient and cosine of the angle. And the character of the data sets needs not to be changed compared with log-transformation. The improved extent similarity can be used to evaluate the similarity of the chromatographic fingerprints of TCM.

The Importance of Understanding Cultural Awareness for Managers in the Hospitality Industry (in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hera Oktadiana

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Cultural awareness is a basic knowledge that each individuality must has. In hotel industry, there are positive advantages that could be reached if a manager could appreciate a cultural, value, attitude differences of each person. This paper adjusts how important the understanding of cultural diversity and pragmatic implementation from several cross cultural communication theory, especially for managers in hotel industry. This paper also describes examples of cultural attitude and habits from some countries that could be refferences in workforce diversity. 

Chromatographic fingerprint similarity analysis for pollutant source identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xie, Juan-Ping; Ni, Hong-Gang

2015-01-01

In the present study, a similarity analysis method was proposed to evaluate the source-sink relationships among environmental media for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which were taken as the representative contaminants. Chromatographic fingerprint analysis has been widely used in the fields of natural products chemistry and forensic chemistry, but its application to environmental science has been limited. We established a library of various sources of media containing contaminants (e.g., plastics), recognizing that the establishment of a more comprehensive library allows for a better understanding of the sources of contamination. We then compared an environmental complex mixture (e.g., sediment, soil) with the profiles in the library. These comparisons could be used as the first step in source tracking. The cosine similarities between plastic and soil or sediment ranged from 0.53 to 0.68, suggesting that plastic in electronic waste is an important source of PBDEs in the environment, but it is not the only source. A similarity analysis between soil and sediment indicated that they have a source-sink relationship. Generally, the similarity analysis method can encompass more relevant information of complex mixtures in the environment than a profile-based approach that only focuses on target pollutants. There is an inherent advantage to creating a data matrix containing all peaks and their relative levels after matching the peaks based on retention times and peak areas. This data matrix can be used for source identification via a similarity analysis without quantitative or qualitative analysis of all chemicals in a sample. - Highlights: • Chromatographic fingerprint analysis can be used as the first step in source tracking. • Similarity analysis method can encompass more relevant information of pollution. • The fingerprints strongly depend on the chromatographic conditions. • A more effective and robust method for identifying similarities is required

Correlations between heterozygosity and measures of genetic similarity: implications for understanding mate choice.

Science.gov (United States)

Roberts, S C; Hale, M L; Petrie, M

2006-03-01

There is currently considerable interest in testing the effects of genetic compatibility and heterozygosity on animal mate preferences. Evidence for either effect is rapidly accumulating, although results are not always clear-cut. However, correlations between mating preferences and either genetic similarity or heterozygosity are usually tested independently, and the possibility that similarity and heterozygosity may be confounded has rarely been taken into account. Here we show that measures of genetic similarity (allele sharing, relatedness) may be correlated with heterozygosity, using data from 441 human individuals genotyped at major loci in the major histocompatibility complex, and 281 peafowl (Pavo cristatus) individuals genotyped at 13 microsatellite loci. We show that average levels of allele sharing and relatedness are each significantly associated with heterozygosity in both humans and peafowl, that these relationships are influenced by the level of polymorphism, and that these similarity measures may correlate with heterozygosity in qualitatively different ways. We discuss the implications of these inter-relationships for interpretation of mate choice studies. It has recently become apparent that mating preferences for 'good genes' and 'compatible genes' may introduce discordant choice amongst individuals, since the optimal mate for one trait may not be optimal for the other, and our results are consistent with this idea. The inter-relationship between these measures of genetic quality also carries implications for the way in which mate choice studies are designed and interpreted, and generates predictions that can be tested in future research.

Understanding urban practitioners' perspectives on social-mix policies in Amsterdam: the importance of design and social space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lawton, P.

2013-01-01

Throughout recent decades, socially-mixed neighbourhoods have become a key element of urban policy and debate. This paper argues, with Amsterdam as an empirical case, that the design, layout and everyday use of social space—including public and private space—is of key importance in understanding the

Comparative study of the second antibody for radioimmunoassay totally produced in the country to a similar imported one (sheep serum anti-rabbit IgG)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silva, S.R. da; Borghi, V.C.; Wajchenberg, B.L.

1992-01-01

This work compares a second antibody for radioimmunoassay (RIA) produced at IPEN-CNEN/SP with a commercial one of known quality, produced by Radioassay Systems Laboratories, U.S.A.. This antiserum, sheep serum anti-rabbit IgG produced in its totality in the country, presented title and precipitation characteristics similar to those exhibited by the commercial product, being as suitable for the RIA separation as its imported similar. (author)

Similar Others in Same-Sex Couples' Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

LeBlanc, Allen J; Frost, David M; Alston-Stepnitz, Eli; Bauermeister, Jose; Stephenson, Rob; Woodyatt, Cory R; de Vries, Brian

2015-01-01

Same-sex couples experience unique minority stressors. It is known that strong social networks facilitate access to psychosocial resources that help people reduce and manage stress. However, little is known about the social networks of same-sex couples, in particular their connections to other same-sex couples, which is important to understand given that the presence of similar others in social networks can ameliorate social stress for stigmatized populations. In this brief report, we present data from a diverse sample of 120 same-sex couples in Atlanta and San Francisco. The median number of other same-sex couples known was 12; couples where one partner was non-Hispanic White and the other a person of color knew relatively few other same-sex couples; and there was a high degree of homophily within the social networks of same-sex couples. These data establish a useful starting point for future investigations of couples' social networks, especially couples whose relationships are stigmatized or marginalized in some way. Better understandings of the size, composition, and functions of same-sex couples' social networks are critically needed.

Age-related similarities and differences in brain activity underlying reversal learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kaoru eNashiro

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The ability to update associative memory is an important aspect of episodic memory and a critical skill for social adaptation. Previous research with younger adults suggests that emotional arousal alters brain mechanisms underlying memory updating; however, it is unclear whether this applies to older adults. Given that the ability to update associative information declines with age, it is important to understand how emotion modulates the brain processes underlying memory updating in older adults. The current study investigated this question using reversal learning tasks, where younger and older participants (age ranges 19-35 and 61-78 respectively learn a stimulus–outcome association and then update their response when contingencies change. We found that younger and older adults showed similar patterns of activation in the frontopolar OFC and the amygdala during emotional reversal learning. In contrast, when reversal learning did not involve emotion, older adults showed greater parietal cortex activity than did younger adults. Thus, younger and older adults show more similarities in brain activity during memory updating involving emotional stimuli than during memory updating not involving emotional stimuli.

Molecular similarity measures.

Science.gov (United States)

Maggiora, Gerald M; Shanmugasundaram, Veerabahu

2011-01-01

Molecular similarity is a pervasive concept in chemistry. It is essential to many aspects of chemical reasoning and analysis and is perhaps the fundamental assumption underlying medicinal chemistry. Dissimilarity, the complement of similarity, also plays a major role in a growing number of applications of molecular diversity in combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, and related fields. How molecular information is represented, called the representation problem, is important to the type of molecular similarity analysis (MSA) that can be carried out in any given situation. In this work, four types of mathematical structure are used to represent molecular information: sets, graphs, vectors, and functions. Molecular similarity is a pairwise relationship that induces structure into sets of molecules, giving rise to the concept of chemical space. Although all three concepts - molecular similarity, molecular representation, and chemical space - are treated in this chapter, the emphasis is on molecular similarity measures. Similarity measures, also called similarity coefficients or indices, are functions that map pairs of compatible molecular representations that are of the same mathematical form into real numbers usually, but not always, lying on the unit interval. This chapter presents a somewhat pedagogical discussion of many types of molecular similarity measures, their strengths and limitations, and their relationship to one another. An expanded account of the material on chemical spaces presented in the first edition of this book is also provided. It includes a discussion of the topography of activity landscapes and the role that activity cliffs in these landscapes play in structure-activity studies.

Evaluating the importance of social motor synchronization and motor skill for understanding autism.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzpatrick, Paula; Romero, Veronica; Amaral, Joseph L; Duncan, Amie; Barnard, Holly; Richardson, Michael J; Schmidt, R C

2017-10-01

Impairments in social interaction and communicating with others are core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the specific processes underlying such social competence impairments are not well understood. An important key for increasing our understanding of ASD-specific social deficits may lie with the social motor synchronization that takes place when we implicitly coordinate our bodies with others. Here, we tested whether dynamical measures of synchronization differentiate children with ASD from controls and further explored the relationships between synchronization ability and motor control problems. We found (a) that children with ASD exhibited different and less stable patterns of social synchronization ability than controls; (b) children with ASD performed motor movements that were slower and more variable in both spacing and timing; and (c) some social synchronization that involved motor timing was related to motor ability but less rhythmic synchronization was not. These findings raise the possibility that objective dynamical measures of synchronization ability and motor skill could provide new insights into understanding the social deficits in ASD that could ultimately aid clinical diagnosis and prognosis. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1687-1699. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Statistical Primer for Athletic Trainers: The Essentials of Understanding Measures of Reliability and Minimal Important Change.

Science.gov (United States)

Riemann, Bryan L; Lininger, Monica R

2018-01-01

  To describe the concepts of measurement reliability and minimal important change.   All measurements have some magnitude of error. Because clinical practice involves measurement, clinicians need to understand measurement reliability. The reliability of an instrument is integral in determining if a change in patient status is meaningful.   Measurement reliability is the extent to which a test result is consistent and free of error. Three perspectives of reliability-relative reliability, systematic bias, and absolute reliability-are often reported. However, absolute reliability statistics, such as the minimal detectable difference, are most relevant to clinicians because they provide an expected error estimate. The minimal important difference is the smallest change in a treatment outcome that the patient would identify as important.   Clinicians should use absolute reliability characteristics, preferably the minimal detectable difference, to determine the extent of error around a patient's measurement. The minimal detectable difference, coupled with an appropriately estimated minimal important difference, can assist the practitioner in identifying clinically meaningful changes in patients.

Using Guided Reinvention to Develop Teachers' Understanding of Hypothesis Testing Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Dolor, Jason; Noll, Jennifer

2015-01-01

Statistics education reform efforts emphasize the importance of informal inference in the learning of statistics. Research suggests statistics teachers experience similar difficulties understanding statistical inference concepts as students and how teacher knowledge can impact student learning. This study investigates how teachers reinvented an…

Why Primates? The Importance of Nonhuman Primates for Understanding Human Infancy

Science.gov (United States)

Weiss, Daniel J.; Santos, Laurie R.

2006-01-01

We introduce the thematic collection by noting some striking similarities in the cognitive abilities of human infants and nonhuman primates. What are the implications of these similarities for our comprehension of human infant cognition? After providing a brief historical and conceptual background on comparative behavioral research, we discuss how…

Prediction of the human response time with the similarity and quantity of information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Sungjin; Heo, Gyunyoung; Chang, Soon Heung

2006-01-01

Memory is one of brain processes that are important when trying to understand how people process information. Although a large number of studies have been made on the human performance, little is known about the similarity effect in human performance. The purpose of this paper is to propose and validate the quantitative and predictive model on the human response time in the user interface with the concept of similarity. However, it is not easy to explain the human performance with only similarity or information amount. We are confronted by two difficulties: making the quantitative model on the human response time with the similarity and validating the proposed model by experimental work. We made the quantitative model based on the Hick's law and the law of practice. In addition, we validated the model with various experimental conditions by measuring participants' response time in the environment of computer-based display. Experimental results reveal that the human performance is improved by the user interface's similarity. We think that the proposed model is useful for the user interface design and evaluation phases

Understanding diversity: the importance of social acceptance.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jacqueline M; Hamilton, David L

2015-04-01

Two studies investigated how people define and perceive diversity in the historically majority-group dominated contexts of business and academia. We hypothesized that individuals construe diversity as both the numeric representation of racial minorities and the social acceptance of racial minorities within a group. In Study 1, undergraduates' (especially minorities') perceptions of campus diversity were predicted by perceived social acceptance on a college campus, above and beyond perceived minority representation. Study 2 showed that increases in a company's representation and social acceptance independently led to increases in perceived diversity of the company among Whites. Among non-Whites, representation and social acceptance only increased perceived diversity of the company when both qualities were high. Together these findings demonstrate the importance of both representation and social acceptance to the achievement of diversity in groups and that perceiver race influences the relative importance of these two components of diversity. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The predictive model on the user reaction time using the information similarity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Sung Jin; Heo, Gyun Young; Chang, Soon Heung

2005-01-01

Human performance is frequently degraded because people forget. Memory is one of brain processes that are important when trying to understand how people process information. Although a large number of studies have been made on the human performance, little is known about the similarity effect in human performance. The purpose of this paper is to propose and validate the quantitative and predictive model on the human response time in the user interface with the concept of similarity. However, it is not easy to explain the human performance with only similarity or information amount. We are confronted by two difficulties: making the quantitative model on the human response time with the similarity and validating the proposed model by experimental work. We made the quantitative model based on the Hick's law and the law of practice. In addition, we validated the model with various experimental conditions by measuring participants' response time in the environment of computer-based display. Experimental results reveal that the human performance is improved by the user interface's similarity. We think that the proposed model is useful for the user interface design and evaluation phases

Between understanding and appreciation. Current science communication in Denmark

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen

2005-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper I use the concepts “understanding of science” and “appreciation of science” to analyze selected case studies of current science communication in Denmark. The Danish science communication system has many similarities with science communication in other countries: the increasing political and scientific interest in science communication, the co-existence of many different kinds of science communication, and the multiple uses of the concepts of understanding vs. appreciation of science. I stress the international aspects of science communication, the national politico-scientific context as well as more local contexts as equally important conditions for understanding current Danish science communication.

Communication: Understanding molecular representations in machine learning: The role of uniqueness and target similarity

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Bing; von Lilienfeld, O. Anatole

2016-10-01

The predictive accuracy of Machine Learning (ML) models of molecular properties depends on the choice of the molecular representation. Inspired by the postulates of quantum mechanics, we introduce a hierarchy of representations which meet uniqueness and target similarity criteria. To systematically control target similarity, we simply rely on interatomic many body expansions, as implemented in universal force-fields, including Bonding, Angular (BA), and higher order terms. Addition of higher order contributions systematically increases similarity to the true potential energy and predictive accuracy of the resulting ML models. We report numerical evidence for the performance of BAML models trained on molecular properties pre-calculated at electron-correlated and density functional theory level of theory for thousands of small organic molecules. Properties studied include enthalpies and free energies of atomization, heat capacity, zero-point vibrational energies, dipole-moment, polarizability, HOMO/LUMO energies and gap, ionization potential, electron affinity, and electronic excitations. After training, BAML predicts energies or electronic properties of out-of-sample molecules with unprecedented accuracy and speed.

Time-Series Similarity Analysis of Satellite Derived Data to Understand Changes in Forest Biomass.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, N.; Fritz, B.

2017-12-01

One of the goals of promoting bioenergy is reducing green-house gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels. However, there are concerns that carbon emissions due to changes in land use resulting from crop production for ethanol will negate the impact of biofuels on the environment. So, the current focus is to use lignocellulose feedstocks also referred to as second generation biofuels as the new source of bioenergy. Wood based pellets derived from the forests of southeastern United States are one such source which is being exported to Europe as a carbon-neutral fuel. These wood-pellets meet the EU standard for carbon emissions and are being used to replace coal for energy generation and heating. As a result US exports of wood-based pellets have increased from nearly zero to over 6 million metric tons over the past 8 years. Wood-based pellets are traditionally produced from softwood trees which have a relatively shorter life-cycle and propagate easily, and thus are expected to provide a sustainable source of wood chips used for pellet production. However, there are concerns that as the demand and price of wood pellets increases, lumber mills will seek wood chips from other sources as well, particularly from hardwood trees resulting in higher carbon emissions as well as loss of biodiversity. In this study we use annual stacks of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data at a 16-day temporal resolution to monitor biomass around pellet mills in southeastern United States. We use a combination of time series similarity technique and supervised learning to understand if there have been significant changes in biomass around pellet mills in the southeastern US. We also demonstrate how our method can be used to monitor biomass over large geographic regions using phenological properties of growing vegetation.

Importance of Applying Condiments in a Commonly Consumed Food System for Understanding the Association Between Familiarity and Sensory Drivers of Liking: A Study Focused on Doenjang.

Science.gov (United States)

Roh, Soo Hyun; Lee, Soh Min; Kim, Sang Sook; Kim, Kwang-Ok

2018-02-01

Doenjang, a Korean traditional fermented soybean paste, is one of the most essential condiments in Korean cuisine. Condiments are rarely consumed as it is, and are generally applied to other foods. The objective of this study was to understand how sensory drivers of liking of Doenjang would be affected according to food forms in which it is evaluated: the original paste form compared with a normally consumed soup form, and to understand the association of familiarity of evaluated food form. Descriptive analysis and consumer acceptability test was performed in 2 consumption forms: the original paste form and the Doenjang soup from. For consumer liking test, elderly consumers who have more experience to traditional Deonjang were compared to the young in their response to Doenjang paste and soup. The descriptive analysis results showed that the characteristic sensory features of the Deonjang samples were little affected based on the food system in which it was evaluated. However, when the paste was applied in soup, the intensities of the characteristic sensory features were reduced. Acceptability and familiarity of traditional type Doenjang samples for the young and for the elderly consumers were very similar in paste, but it differed when the samples were evaluated in soup. Thus, expectation difference between the young and the elderly was better revealed in soup, a more common food form consumed in practice. The results of this study indicate the importance of understanding sensory drivers of liking for a condiment such as Doenjang in their commonly consumed forms. Compared to the original condiment form, expectation difference between the young and the elderly were better revealed in Deonjang soup, a food form normally consumed in practice. Thus, the results of this study reinforced the importance of investigating sensory drivers of liking for a condiment in a food form that is normally consumed in practice for accurate understanding on consumer preference. © 2018

Geography and similarity of regional cuisines in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Yu-Xiao; Huang, Junming; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhang, Qian-Ming; Zhou, Tao; Ahn, Yong-Yeol

2013-01-01

Food occupies a central position in every culture and it is therefore of great interest to understand the evolution of food culture. The advent of the World Wide Web and online recipe repositories have begun to provide unprecedented opportunities for data-driven, quantitative study of food culture. Here we harness an online database documenting recipes from various Chinese regional cuisines and investigate the similarity of regional cuisines in terms of geography and climate. We find that geographical proximity, rather than climate proximity, is a crucial factor that determines the similarity of regional cuisines. We develop a model of regional cuisine evolution that provides helpful clues for understanding the evolution of cuisines and cultures.

Geography and Similarity of Regional Cuisines in China

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Yu-Xiao; Huang, Junming; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhang, Qian-Ming; Zhou, Tao; Ahn, Yong-Yeol

2013-01-01

Food occupies a central position in every culture and it is therefore of great interest to understand the evolution of food culture. The advent of the World Wide Web and online recipe repositories have begun to provide unprecedented opportunities for data-driven, quantitative study of food culture. Here we harness an online database documenting recipes from various Chinese regional cuisines and investigate the similarity of regional cuisines in terms of geography and climate. We find that geographical proximity, rather than climate proximity, is a crucial factor that determines the similarity of regional cuisines. We develop a model of regional cuisine evolution that provides helpful clues for understanding the evolution of cuisines and cultures. PMID:24260166

To Go Forward, We Must Look Back: The Importance of Evolutionary Psychology for Understanding Modern Politics.

Science.gov (United States)

McDermott, Rose; Hatemi, Peter K

2018-01-01

As new waves of populism arise and cause disruption around the globe, there is both great interest in attempting to explain the origin of this dynamic as well as a need to ameliorate its potentially destructive impact. Perhaps the greatest signal of seismic change is the global dismantling of American institutional control of the postwar world following the election of Donald Trump in the United States. In the wake of such dramatic changes, it may seem odd to turn to evolutionary psychology which looks deeply into the past to try to understand current events, but, in fact, modern technology has dramatically changed the shape of political communication in just such a way as to make politics more personal once again, increasing the need to understand and interpret modern politics through an evolutionary lens. In fact, current modern political turmoils demonstrate how important evolutionary themes are and how critical they remain to understand how current forms of populism tape into older tribal sentiments and drives. Modern technology allows for a form of interpretative politics that no longer need to be mediated by political institutions or larger social structures, including enduring ones such as marriage. Indeed, in any ways, as we have technologically advanced, we have also regressed to more immediate, emotional, and personal forms of political communication. And it is only in understanding the nature of that personal political psychology that we can begin to grapple seriously with the challenges of today, including the consequences of global populism.

The Importance of Motivation Theories for Understanding Washback to the Learner

OpenAIRE

WATANABE, Yoshinori

2006-01-01

The present paper portrays three theories of motivation in the expectation that it will help to understand the washback effect of language tests on learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The three theories that are identified involve attribution theories of motivation, flow, and functional theories of motivation. The characteristics of these theories are described in a way in which they may help understand the meaning of the recent attempt by the Japanese Ministry of Education to innov...

Voices of the Filipino Community Describing the Importance of Family in Understanding Adolescent Behavioral Health Needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Javier, Joyce R; Galura, Kristina; Aliganga, Frank Anthony P; Supan, Jocelyn; Palinkas, Lawrence A

Filipinos are a large, yet invisible, minority at high risk for adolescent behavioral health problems. Limited research describes the family as offering a source of positive support for some Filipino youths and yet for some it is also a source of stress and isolation, leading to struggles with adolescent depression and suicidal behavior. This article describes a qualitative study that investigates the role of family when understanding behavioral health needs among Filipino adolescents. Findings highlight the importance of addressing family cohesion when designing interventions aimed at improving the well-being of Filipino youth.

Perceptual and conceptual similarities facilitate the generalization of instructed fear.

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Marc; Vervoort, Ellen; Boddez, Yannick; Hermans, Dirk; Baeyens, Frank

2015-09-01

Learned fear can generalize to neutral events due their perceptual and conceptual similarity with threat relevant stimuli. This study simultaneously examined these forms of generalization to model the expansion of fear in anxiety disorders. First, artificial categories involving sounds, nonsense words and animal-like objects were established. Next, the words from one category were paired with threatening information while the words from the other category were paired with safety information. Lastly, we examined if fear generalized to (i) the conceptually related animal-like objects and (ii) other animal like-objects that were perceptually similar. This was measured using behavioral avoidance, US expectancy ratings and self-reported stimulus valence. Animal-like objects conceptually connected to the aversive words evoked heightened fear. Perceptual variants of these animal-like objects also elicit fear. Future research would benefit from the use of online-US expectancy ratings and physiological measures of fear. Investigating the role of both perceptual and conceptual fear generalization is important to better understand the etiology of anxiety disorders symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Similarity increases altruistic punishment in humans.

Science.gov (United States)

Mussweiler, Thomas; Ockenfels, Axel

2013-11-26

Humans are attracted to similar others. As a consequence, social networks are homogeneous in sociodemographic, intrapersonal, and other characteristics--a principle called homophily. Despite abundant evidence showing the importance of interpersonal similarity and homophily for human relationships, their behavioral correlates and cognitive foundations are poorly understood. Here, we show that perceived similarity substantially increases altruistic punishment, a key mechanism underlying human cooperation. We induced (dis)similarity perception by manipulating basic cognitive mechanisms in an economic cooperation game that included a punishment phase. We found that similarity-focused participants were more willing to punish others' uncooperative behavior. This influence of similarity is not explained by group identity, which has the opposite effect on altruistic punishment. Our findings demonstrate that pure similarity promotes reciprocity in ways known to encourage cooperation. At the same time, the increased willingness to punish norm violations among similarity-focused participants provides a rationale for why similar people are more likely to build stable social relationships. Finally, our findings show that altruistic punishment is differentially involved in encouraging cooperation under pure similarity vs. in-group conditions.

Understanding the Importance of Front Yard Accessibility for Community Building: A Case Study of Subiaco, Western Australia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abu Yousuf Swapan

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The residential built form, including open space, provides the physical environment for social interaction. Understanding urban open space, including semi-public and public domains, through the lens of physical accessibility and visual permeability can potentially facilitate the building of a sense of community contributing to a better quality of life. Using an inner-city suburb in Perth, Western Australia as a case study, this research explores the importance of physical accessibility patterns and visual permeability for socialising in semi-public and public domains, such as the front yard and the residential streets. It argues that maintaining a balance between public and private inter-relationship in inner city residential neighbourhoods is important for creating and maintaining a sense of community.

When is a terrace not a terrace? The importance of understanding landscape evolution in studies of terraced agriculture.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferro-Vázquez, C; Lang, C; Kaal, J; Stump, D

2017-11-01

Before the invention of modern, large-scale engineering projects, terrace systems were rarely built in single phases of construction, but instead developed gradually, and could even be said to have evolved. Understanding this process of landscape change is therefore important in order to fully appreciate how terrace systems were built and functioned, and is also pivotal to understanding how the communities that farmed these systems responded to changes; whether these are changes to the landscape brought about by the farming practices themselves, or changes to social, economic or climatic conditions. Combining archaeological stratigraphy, soil micromorphology and geochemistry, this paper presents a case-study from the historic and extensive terraced landscape at Konso, southwest Ethiopia, and demonstrates - in one important river valley at least - that the original topsoil and much of the subsoil was lost prior to the construction of hillside terraces. Moreover, the study shows that alluvial sediment traps that were built adjacent to rivers relied on widespread hillside soil erosion for their construction, and strongly suggests that these irrigated riverside fields were formerly a higher economic priority than the hillside terraces themselves; a possibility that was not recognised by numerous observational studies of farming in this landscape. Research that takes into account how terrace systems change through time can thus provide important details of whether the function of the system has changed, and can help assess how the legacies of former practices impact current or future cultivation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Ecology-Based Nature Education Project in Terms of Nature Integration and Understanding the Human-Ecosystem Relationship

Science.gov (United States)

Meydan, Ali

2011-01-01

The aim of this project is to define the importance of 12-day ecology-based education training upon integration with nature and understanding the human-ecosystem relationship. In accordance with this purpose, there has been collected some survey data interviewing with the participants of "Lake Beysehir National Park and Ecology-based Nature…

Similarity of the ruminal bacteria across individual lactating cows.

Science.gov (United States)

Jami, Elie; Mizrahi, Itzhak

2012-06-01

Dairy cattle hold enormous significance for man as a source of milk and meat. Their remarkable ability to convert indigestible plant mass into these digestible food products resides in the rumen - an anaerobic chambered compartment - in the bovine digestive system. The rumen houses a complex microbiota which is responsible for the degradation of plant material, consequently enabling the conversion of plant fibers into milk and meat and determining their quality and quantity. Hence, an understanding of this complex ecosystem has major economic implications. One important question that is yet to be addressed is the degree of conservation of rumen microbial composition across individual animals. Here we quantified the degree of similarity between rumen bacterial populations of 16 individual cows. We used real-time PCR to determine the variance of specific ruminal bacterial species with different metabolic functions, revealing that while some bacterial strains vary greatly across animals, others show only very low variability. This variance could not be linked to the metabolic traits of these bacteria. We examined the degree of similarity in the dominant bacterial populations across all animals using automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA), and identified a bacterial community consisting of 32% operational taxonomic units (OTUs) shared by at least 90% of the animals and 19% OTUs shared by 100% of the animals. Looking only at the presence or absence of each OTU gave an average similarity of 75% between each cow pair. When abundance of each OTU was added to the analysis, this similarity decreased to an average of less than 60%. Thus, as suggested in similar recent studies of the human gut, a bovine rumen core microbiome does exist, but taxa abundance may vary greatly across animals. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Equal Sign Understanding in the Middle Grades

Science.gov (United States)

Knuth, Eric J.; Alibali, Martha W.; Hattikudur, Shanta; McNeil, Nicole M.; Stephens, Ana C.

2008-01-01

The equal sign is perhaps the most prevalent symbol in school mathematics, and developing an understanding of it has typically been considered mathematically straightforward. In fact, after its initial introduction during students' early elementary school education, little, if any instructional time is explicitly spent on the concept in the later…

Understanding Biological Roles of Venoms Among the Caenophidia: The Importance of Rear-Fanged Snakes.

Science.gov (United States)

Mackessy, Stephen P; Saviola, Anthony J

2016-11-01

Snake venoms represent an adaptive trophic response to the challenges confronting a limbless predator for overcoming combative prey, and this chemical means of subduing prey shows several dominant phenotypes. Many front-fanged snakes, particularly vipers, feed on various vertebrate and invertebrate prey species, and some of their venom components (e.g., metalloproteinases, cobratoxin) appear to have been selected for "broad-brush" incapacitation of different prey taxa. Using proteomic and genomic techniques, the compositional diversity of front-fanged snakes is becoming well characterized; however, this is not the case for most rear-fanged colubroid snakes. Because these species consume a high diversity of prey, and because venoms are primarily a trophic adaptation, important clues for understanding specific selective pressures favoring venom component composition will be found among rear-fanged snake venoms. Rear-fanged snakes typically (but not always) produce venoms with lower complexity than front-fanged snakes, and there are even fewer dominant (and, arguably, biologically most relevant) venom protein families. We have demonstrated taxon-specific toxic effects, where lizards and birds show high susceptibility while mammals are largely unaffected, for both Old World and New World rear-fanged snakes, strongly indicating a causal link between toxin evolution and prey preference. New data are presented on myotoxin a, showing that the extremely rapid paralysis induced by this rattlesnake toxin is specific for rodents, and that myotoxin a is ineffectual against lizards. Relatively few rear-fanged snake venoms have been characterized, and basic natural history data are largely lacking, but directed sampling of specialized species indicates that novel compounds are likely among these specialists, particularly among those species feeding on invertebrate prey such as scorpions and centipedes. Because many of the more than 2200 species of colubroid snakes are rear

Understanding the relationship between Kano model's customer satisfaction scores and self-stated requirements importance.

Science.gov (United States)

Mkpojiogu, Emmanuel O C; Hashim, Nor Laily

2016-01-01

Customer satisfaction is the result of product quality and viability. The place of the perceived satisfaction of users/customers for a software product cannot be neglected especially in today competitive market environment as it drives the loyalty of customers and promotes high profitability and return on investment. Therefore understanding the importance of requirements as it is associated with the satisfaction of users/customers when their requirements are met is worth the pain considering. It is necessary to know the relationship between customer satisfactions when their requirements are met (or their dissatisfaction when their requirements are unmet) and the importance of such requirement. So many works have been carried out on customer satisfaction in connection with the importance of requirements but the relationship between customer satisfaction scores (coefficients) of the Kano model and users/customers self-stated requirements importance have not been sufficiently explored. In this study, an attempt is made to unravel the underlying relationship existing between Kano model's customer satisfaction indexes and users/customers self reported requirements importance. The results of the study indicate some interesting associations between these considered variables. These bivariate associations reveal that customer satisfaction index (SI), and average satisfaction coefficient (ASC) and customer dissatisfaction index (DI) and average satisfaction coefficient (ASC) are highly correlated (r = 96 %) and thus ASC can be used in place of either SI or DI in representing customer satisfaction scores. Also, these Kano model's customer satisfaction variables (SI, DI, and ASC) are each associated with self-stated requirements importance (IMP). Further analysis indicates that the value customers or users place on requirements that are met or on features that are incorporated into a product influences the level of satisfaction such customers derive from the product. The

The potential indirect effects among plants via shared hummingbird pollinators are structured by phenotypic similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Bergamo, Pedro Joaquim; Wolowski, Marina; Maruyama, Pietro Kiyoshi; Vizentin-Bugoni, Jeferson; Carvalheiro, Luísa G; Sazima, Marlies

2017-07-01

Plant species within communities may overlap in pollinators' use and influence visitation patterns of shared pollinators, potentially engaging in indirect interactions (e.g., facilitation or competition). While several studies have explored the mechanisms regulating insect-pollination networks, there is a lack of studies on bird-pollination systems, particularly in species-rich tropical areas. Here, we evaluated if phenotypic similarity, resource availability (floral abundance), evolutionary relatedness and flowering phenology affect the potential for indirect effects via shared pollinators in hummingbird-pollinated plant species within four communities in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Among the evaluated factors, phenotypic similarity (corolla length and anther height) was the most important variable, while resource availability (floral abundance) had a secondary importance. On the other hand, evolutionary relatedness and flowering phenology were less important, which altogether highlights the relevance of convergent evolution and that the contribution of a plant to the diet of the pollinators of another plant is independent of the level of temporal overlap in flowering in this tropical system. Interestingly, our findings contrast with results from multiple insect-pollinated plant communities, mostly from temperate regions, in which floral abundance was the most important driver, followed by evolutionary relatedness and phenotypic similarity. We propose that these contrasting results are due to high level of specialization inherent to tropical hummingbird-pollination systems. Moreover, our results demonstrated that factors defining linkage rules of plant-hummingbird networks also determinate plant-plant potential indirect effects. Future studies are needed to test if these findings can be generalized to other highly specialized systems. Overall, our results have important implications for the understanding of ecological processes due resource sharing in

Understanding the Importance of the Teres Minor for Shoulder Function: Functional Anatomy and Pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Matthew D; Edwards, Thomas Bradley; Walch, Gilles

2018-03-01

Although the teres minor is often overlooked in a normal shoulder, it becomes a key component in maintaining shoulder function when other rotator cuff tendons fail. The teres minor maintains a balanced glenohumeral joint and changes from an insignificant to the most significant external rotator in the presence of major rotator cuff pathology. The presence or absence of the teres minor provides prognostic information on the outcomes of reverse total shoulder arthroplasty and tendon transfers. Clinical tests include the Patte test, the Neer dropping sign, the external rotation lag sign, and the Hertel drop sign. Advanced imaging of the teres minor can be used for classification using the Walch system. Understanding the function and pathology surrounding the teres minor is paramount in comprehensive management of the patient with shoulder pathology. Appropriate clinical examination and imaging of the teres minor are important for preoperative stratification and postoperative expectations.

Between understanding and appreciation. Current science communication in Denmark (Danish original version

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen

2005-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper I use the concepts “understanding of science” and “appreciation of science” to analyze selected case studies of current science communication in Denmark. The Danish science communication system has many similarities with science communication in other countries: the increasing political and scientific interest in science communication, the co-existence of many different kinds of science communication, and the multiple uses of the concepts of understanding vs. appreciation of science. I stress the international aspects of science communication, the national politico-scientific context as well as more local contexts as equally important conditions for understanding current Danish science communication.

Vaccine mandates, public trust, and vaccine confidence: understanding perceptions is important.

Science.gov (United States)

Widdus, Roy; Larson, Heidi

2018-05-01

The experience in Australia with penalizing parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated demonstrates the need to study and understand resistance to vaccination as a global phenomenon with particular local manifestations.

Understanding sleep disturbance in athletes prior to important competitions.

Science.gov (United States)

Juliff, Laura E; Halson, Shona L; Peiffer, Jeremiah J

2015-01-01

Anecdotally many athletes report worse sleep in the nights prior to important competitions. Despite sleep being acknowledged as an important factor for optimal athletic performance and overall health, little is understood about athlete sleep around competition. The aims of this study were to identify sleep complaints of athletes prior to competitions and determine whether complaints were confined to competition periods. Cross-sectional study. A sample of 283 elite Australian athletes (129 male, 157 female, age 24±5 y) completed two questionnaires; Competitive Sport and Sleep questionnaire and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. 64.0% of athletes indicated worse sleep on at least one occasion in the nights prior to an important competition over the past 12 months. The main sleep problem specified by athletes was problems falling asleep (82.1%) with the main reasons responsible for poor sleep indicated as thoughts about the competition (83.5%) and nervousness (43.8%). Overall 59.1% of team sport athletes reported having no strategy to overcome poor sleep compared with individual athletes (32.7%, p=0.002) who utilised relaxation and reading as strategies. Individual sport athletes had increased likelihood of poor sleep as they aged. The poor sleep reported by athletes prior to competition was situational rather than a global sleep problem. Poor sleep is common prior to major competitions in Australian athletes, yet most athletes are unaware of strategies to overcome the poor sleep experienced. It is essential coaches and scientists monitor and educate both individual and team sport athletes to facilitate sleep prior to important competitions. Copyright © 2014 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

End-of-life care across Southern Europe: a critical review of cultural similarities and differences between Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Science.gov (United States)

Meñaca, Arantza; Evans, Natalie; Andrew, Erin V W; Toscani, Franco; Finetti, Silvia; Gómez-Batiste, Xavier; Higginson, Irene J; Harding, Richard; Pool, Robert; Gysels, Marjolein

2012-06-01

Evidence from a range of sources demonstrates that end-of-life (EoL) care practices and preferences vary across countries; culture is consistently one of the main explanations given for this. In order to understand how cultural factors are used to explain similarities and differences in EoL care between Spain, Italy and Portugal, database and hand searches were performed and cross-cutting core themes identified. Similarities included higher proportions of people who wished to die at home than actually died at home, a persistent trend for partial disclosure in Italy and Spain, low use of advance directives, and low incidence of all medical EoL decisions (with the exception of terminal sedation) compared to northern European countries. The role of religion and the importance of family ties were the two main cultural factors used to explain the similarities. Further research is needed in order to interpret the important differences that were also found. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Understanding Islam in the U.S. Classroom: A Guide for Elementary School Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Hossain, Kazi I.

2013-01-01

This article provides strategies that are recommended to elementary school teachers to help students in the U.S. understand Islam and its followers. It discusses the importance of cultural and historical studies in making students aware of the value of Islam to its followers. Three strategies described herein are: the concept of similarities, the…

Similar words analysis based on POS-CBOW language model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dongru RUAN

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Similar words analysis is one of the important aspects in the field of natural language processing, and it has important research and application values in text classification, machine translation and information recommendation. Focusing on the features of Sina Weibo's short text, this paper presents a language model named as POS-CBOW, which is a kind of continuous bag-of-words language model with the filtering layer and part-of-speech tagging layer. The proposed approach can adjust the word vectors' similarity according to the cosine similarity and the word vectors' part-of-speech metrics. It can also filter those similar words set on the base of the statistical analysis model. The experimental result shows that the similar words analysis algorithm based on the proposed POS-CBOW language model is better than that based on the traditional CBOW language model.

Surf similarity and solitary wave runup

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fuhrman, David R.; Madsen, Per A.

2008-01-01

The notion of surf similarity in the runup of solitary waves is revisited. We show that the surf similarity parameter for solitary waves may be effectively reduced to the beach slope divided by the offshore wave height to depth ratio. This clarifies its physical interpretation relative to a previ...... functional dependence on their respective surf similarity parameters. Important equivalencies in the runup of sinusoidal and solitary waves are thus revealed.......The notion of surf similarity in the runup of solitary waves is revisited. We show that the surf similarity parameter for solitary waves may be effectively reduced to the beach slope divided by the offshore wave height to depth ratio. This clarifies its physical interpretation relative...... to a previous parameterization, which was not given in an explicit form. Good coherency with experimental (breaking) runup data is preserved with this simpler parameter. A recasting of analytical (nonbreaking) runup expressions for sinusoidal and solitary waves additionally shows that they contain identical...

Improved cosine similarity measures of simplified neutrosophic setsfor medical diagnoses

OpenAIRE

Jun Ye

2014-01-01

In pattern recognition and medical diagnosis, similarity measure is an important mathematicaltool. To overcome some disadvantages of existing cosine similarity measures of simplified neutrosophicsets (SNSs) in vector space, this paper proposed improved cosine similarity measures of SNSs based oncosine function, including single valued neutrosophic cosine similarity measures and interval neutro-sophic cosine similarity measures. Then, weighted cosine similarity measures of SNSs were introduced...

Learned helplessness in chess players: the importance of task similarity and the role of skill.

Science.gov (United States)

Gobet, F R

1992-01-01

The effects of noncontingency between subjects' responses and outcomes were examined with respect to treatment-and-posttest similarity and skill in the task. The experimental design consisted of three groups. The first group had to solve chess problems with objective solutions and received veridical feedback; each member of the second group faced problems with no objective solutions, and received the same feedback as the member of the first group he was yoked with, but without any control on it; the control group received a waiting task. It was found at the end of the experiment that the group with unsolvable problems was more depressed than the two other groups. The mid-strength players were the most sensitive to the manipulation, and the weakest players showed little effect of learned helplessness. It was also found that the effects were proportional to the degree of similarity between the treatment and the posttest. The results limit the domain of applicability of the learned-helplessness model.

Qualitative systematic reviews: their importance for our understanding of research relevant to pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Seers, Kate

2015-02-01

This article outlines what a qualitative systematic review is and explores what it can contribute to our understanding of pain. Many of us use evidence of effectiveness for various interventions when working with people in pain. A good systematic review can be invaluable in bringing together research evidence to help inform our practice and help us understand what works. In addition to evidence of effectiveness, understanding how people with pain experience both their pain and their care can help us when we are working with them to provide care that meets their needs. A rigorous qualitative systematic review can also uncover new understandings, often helping illuminate 'why' and can help build theory. Such a review can answer the question 'What is it like to have chronic pain?' This article presents the different stages of meta-ethnography, which is the most common methodology used for qualitative systematic reviews. It presents evidence from four meta-ethnographies relevant to pain to illustrate the types of findings that can emerge from this approach. It shows how new understandings may emerge and gives an example of chronic musculoskeletal pain being experienced as 'an adversarial struggle' across many aspects of the person's life. This article concludes that evidence from qualitative systematic reviews has its place alongside or integrated with evidence from more quantitative approaches.

Understanding Nutrient Processing Under Similar Hydrologic Conditions Along a River Continuum

Science.gov (United States)

Garayburu-Caruso, V. A.; Mortensen, J.; Van Horn, D. J.; Gonzalez-Pinzon, R.

2015-12-01

Eutrophication is one of the main causes of water impairment across the US. The fate of nutrients in streams is typically described by the dynamic coupling of physical processes and biochemical processes. However, isolating each of these processes and determining its contribution to the whole system is challenging due to the complexity of the physical, chemical and biological domains. We conducted column experiments seeking to understand nutrient processing in shallow sediment-water interactions along representative sites of the Jemez River-Rio Grande continuum (eight stream orders), in New Mexico (USA). For each stream order, we used a set of 6 columns packed with 3 different sediments, i.e., Silica Cone Density Sand ASTM D 1556 (0.075-2.00 mm), gravel (> 2mm) and native sediments from each site. We incubated the sediments for three months and performed tracer experiments in the laboratory under identical flow conditions, seeking to normalize the physical processes along the river continuum. We added a short-term pulse injection of NO3, resazurin and NaCl to each column and determined metabolism and NO3 processing using the Tracer Additions for Spiraling Curve Characterization method (TASCC). Our methods allowed us to study how changes in bacterial communities and sediment composition along the river continuum define nutrient processing.

Understanding Understanding Mathematics. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 488.

Science.gov (United States)

Michener, Edwina Rissland

This document is concerned with the important extra-logical knowledge that is often outside of traditional discussions in mathematics, and looks at some of the ingredients and processes involved in the understanding of mathematics. The goal is to develop a conceptual framework in which to talk about mathematical knowledge and to understand the…

Phishing Detection: Analysis of Visual Similarity Based Approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ankit Kumar Jain

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Phishing is one of the major problems faced by cyber-world and leads to financial losses for both industries and individuals. Detection of phishing attack with high accuracy has always been a challenging issue. At present, visual similarities based techniques are very useful for detecting phishing websites efficiently. Phishing website looks very similar in appearance to its corresponding legitimate website to deceive users into believing that they are browsing the correct website. Visual similarity based phishing detection techniques utilise the feature set like text content, text format, HTML tags, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS, image, and so forth, to make the decision. These approaches compare the suspicious website with the corresponding legitimate website by using various features and if the similarity is greater than the predefined threshold value then it is declared phishing. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of phishing attacks, their exploitation, some of the recent visual similarity based approaches for phishing detection, and its comparative study. Our survey provides a better understanding of the problem, current solution space, and scope of future research to deal with phishing attacks efficiently using visual similarity based approaches.

Understanding pastoral mobility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Adriansen, Hanne Kirstine

2008-01-01

Based on a case study from Sahelian Senegal, this paper analyses how various actors perceive the importance of pastoral mobility and presents issues of importance for understanding the use of mobility among Fulani of Ferlo. One knowledge system is a scientific one, the 'new rangeland paradigm...... territory, which they consider their place, but are unwilling to employ large-scale mobility themselves. Mobility is not of importance for their ethnic identity and some use paid herders to care for their livestock. By looking at both knowledge systems, we achieve a better understanding of pastoral mobility...

Concept similarity in publications precedes cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Post, Andrew R; Harrison, James H

2008-11-06

Innovative science frequently occurs as a result of cross-disciplinary collaboration, the importance of which is reflected by recent NIH funding initiatives that promote communication and collaboration. If shared research interests between collaborators are important for the formation of collaborations,methods for identifying these shared interests across scientific domains could potentially reveal new and useful collaboration opportunities. MEDLINE represents a comprehensive database of collaborations and research interests, as reflected by article co-authors and concept content. We analyzed six years of citations using information retrieval based methods to compute articles conceptual similarity, and found that articles by basic and clinical scientists who later collaborated had significantly higher average similarity than articles by similar scientists who did not collaborate.Refinement of these methods and characterization of found conceptual overlaps could allow automated discovery of collaboration opportunities that are currently missed.

Application of first order rate kinetics to explain changes in bloom toxicity—the importance of understanding cell toxin quotas

Science.gov (United States)

Orr, Philip T.; Willis, Anusuya; Burford, Michele A.

2018-04-01

Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic Gram-negative bacteria that can form potentially toxic blooms in eutrophic and slow flowing aquatic ecosystems. Bloom toxicity varies spatially and temporally, but understanding the mechanisms that drive these changes remains largely a mystery. Changes in bloom toxicity may result from changes in intracellular toxin pool sizes of cyanotoxins with differing molecular toxicities, and/or from changes in the cell concentrations of toxic and non-toxic cyanobacterial species or strains within bloom populations. We show here how first-order rate kinetics at the cellular level can be used to explain how environmental conditions drive changes in bloom toxicity at the ecological level. First order rate constants can be calculated for changes in cell concentration (μ c: specific cell division rate) or the volumetric biomass concentration (μ g: specific growth rate) between short time intervals throughout the cell cycle. Similar first order rate constants can be calculated for changes in nett volumetric cyanotoxin concentration (μ tox: specific cyanotoxin production rate) over similar time intervals. How μ c (or μ g ) covaries with μ tox over the cell cycle shows conclusively when cyanotoxins are being produced and metabolised, and how the toxicity of cells change in response to environment stressors. When μ tox/μ c>1, cyanotoxin cell quotas increase and individual cells become more toxic because the nett cyanotoxin production rate is higher than the cell division rate. When μ tox/μ c=1, cell cyanotoxin quotas remains fixed because the nett cyanotoxin production rate matches the cell division rate. When μ tox/μ ccyanotoxin cell quota decreases because either the nett cyanotoxin production rate is lower than the cell division rate, or metabolic breakdown and/or secretion of cyanotoxins is occurring. These fundamental equations describe cyanotoxin metabolism dynamics at the cellular level and provide the necessary

DOSim: An R package for similarity between diseases based on Disease Ontology

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background The construction of the Disease Ontology (DO) has helped promote the investigation of diseases and disease risk factors. DO enables researchers to analyse disease similarity by adopting semantic similarity measures, and has expanded our understanding of the relationships between different diseases and to classify them. Simultaneously, similarities between genes can also be analysed by their associations with similar diseases. As a result, disease heterogeneity is better understood and insights into the molecular pathogenesis of similar diseases have been gained. However, bioinformatics tools that provide easy and straight forward ways to use DO to study disease and gene similarity simultaneously are required. Results We have developed an R-based software package (DOSim) to compute the similarity between diseases and to measure the similarity between human genes in terms of diseases. DOSim incorporates a DO-based enrichment analysis function that can be used to explore the disease feature of an independent gene set. A multilayered enrichment analysis (GO and KEGG annotation) annotation function that helps users explore the biological meaning implied in a newly detected gene module is also part of the DOSim package. We used the disease similarity application to demonstrate the relationship between 128 different DO cancer terms. The hierarchical clustering of these 128 different cancers showed modular characteristics. In another case study, we used the gene similarity application on 361 obesity-related genes. The results revealed the complex pathogenesis of obesity. In addition, the gene module detection and gene module multilayered annotation functions in DOSim when applied on these 361 obesity-related genes helped extend our understanding of the complex pathogenesis of obesity risk phenotypes and the heterogeneity of obesity-related diseases. Conclusions DOSim can be used to detect disease-driven gene modules, and to annotate the modules for functions and

Measuring similarity between business process models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dongen, van B.F.; Dijkman, R.M.; Mendling, J.

2007-01-01

Quality aspects become increasingly important when business process modeling is used in a large-scale enterprise setting. In order to facilitate a storage without redundancy and an efficient retrieval of relevant process models in model databases it is required to develop a theoretical understanding

Interpersonal Similarity and Knowledge Sharing within Multinational Organizations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mäkelä, Kristiina; Andersson, Ulf; Seppälä, Tomi

2012-01-01

Previous research has established that interpersonal similarity can influence knowledge sharing in such a way that similar people are more likely to share knowledge than those who are dissimilar. We contribute to the literature by showing that in the MNC context, cultural and functional similarit....... These microfoundations of inter-unit knowledge exchange point to important theoretical and practical implications for international management....

Understanding postoperative fatigue.

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, E A; King, T C

1978-07-01

Performance characteristics of the central nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular systems in man postoperatively have received little investigative attention, despite the well known syndrome of postoperative fatigue. The impairmen in perception and psychomotor skills that has been shown to result from caloric restriction, bedrest, sedation and sleep deprivation suggests that a similar deficit may occur after surgical procedures. After a simple elective surgical procedure, maximal oxygen uptake decreases and the adaptability of heart rate to submaximal workloads is impaired. Similar deleterious effects on cardiorespiratory performance have been documented with starvation and bedrest; an understanding of cardiorespiratory performance postoperatively awaits further investigation. Maximal muscular force of contraction is also impaired by caloric restriction and bedrest, suggesting that similar effects may be seen in the postoperative state, although this has not been studied. A better understanding of the syndrome of postoperative fatigue could be achieved by a descriptive analysis of physiologic performance postoperatively. Such descriptive data could form the basis for objective evaluation of therapeutic measures intended to improve performance, such as nutritional supplementation and pharmacologic intervention. The observation that exercise with the patient in the supine position may decrease the impairment in maximal aerobic power otherwise expected in immobilized patients suggests that controlled exercise therapy may be of value in reducing physiologic impairment postoperatively.

The current state of Contract Law in Australia and why it is important for rural managers to understand it

OpenAIRE

Smith, Tony

2011-01-01

Farmers are business managers and as such they must understand the law or they are likely to fall foul of it. This especially applies to contract law, with which they deal constantly. Contract law is made up of the common law – as the courts have decided it – and statute law- as the state and federal parliaments have enacted statutes which modify the common law. The most important and most recent of the latter is the new Australian Consumer Law.

Semantic similarity between ontologies at different scales

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Qingpeng; Haglin, David J.

2016-04-01

In the past decade, existing and new knowledge and datasets has been encoded in different ontologies for semantic web and biomedical research. The size of ontologies is often very large in terms of number of concepts and relationships, which makes the analysis of ontologies and the represented knowledge graph computational and time consuming. As the ontologies of various semantic web and biomedical applications usually show explicit hierarchical structures, it is interesting to explore the trade-offs between ontological scales and preservation/precision of results when we analyze ontologies. This paper presents the first effort of examining the capability of this idea via studying the relationship between scaling biomedical ontologies at different levels and the semantic similarity values. We evaluate the semantic similarity between three Gene Ontology slims (Plant, Yeast, and Candida, among which the latter two belong to the same kingdom—Fungi) using four popular measures commonly applied to biomedical ontologies (Resnik, Lin, Jiang-Conrath, and SimRel). The results of this study demonstrate that with proper selection of scaling levels and similarity measures, we can significantly reduce the size of ontologies without losing substantial detail. In particular, the performance of Jiang-Conrath and Lin are more reliable and stable than that of the other two in this experiment, as proven by (a) consistently showing that Yeast and Candida are more similar (as compared to Plant) at different scales, and (b) small deviations of the similarity values after excluding a majority of nodes from several lower scales. This study provides a deeper understanding of the application of semantic similarity to biomedical ontologies, and shed light on how to choose appropriate semantic similarity measures for biomedical engineering.

Recent advances in understanding Listeria monocytogenes infection: the importance of subcellular and physiological context [version 1; referees: 3 approved

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daryl J. V. David

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm is the causative agent of listeriosis, a rare but fatal foodborne disease. During infection, Lm can traverse several host barriers and enter the cytosol of a variety of cell types. Thus, consideration of the extracellular and intracellular niches of Lm is critical for understanding the infection process. Here, we review advances in our understanding of Lm infection and highlight how the interactions between the host and the pathogen are context dependent. We discuss discoveries of how Lm senses entry into the host cell cytosol. We present findings concerning how the nature of the various cytoskeleton components subverted by Lm changes depending on both the stage of infection and the subcellular context. We present discoveries of critical components required for Lm traversal of physiological barriers. Interactions between the host gut microbiota and Lm will be briefly discussed. Finally, the importance of Lm biodiversity and post-genomics approaches as a promising way to discover novel virulence factors will be highlighted.

Understanding Core-Collapse Supernovae

Science.gov (United States)

Hix, W. R.; Lentz, E. J.; Baird, M.; Messer, O. E. B.; Mezzacappa, A.; Lee, C.-T.; Bruenn, S. W.; Blondin, J. M.; Marronetti, P.

2010-03-01

Our understanding of core-collapse supernovae continues to improve as better microphysics is included in increasingly realistic neutrino-radiationhydrodynamic simulations. Recent multi-dimensional models with spectral neutrino transport, which slowly develop successful explosions for a range of progenitors between 12 and 25 solar mass, have motivated changes in our understanding of the neutrino reheating mechanism. In a similar fashion, improvements in nuclear physics, most notably explorations of weak interactions on nuclei and the nuclear equation of state, continue to refine our understanding of how supernovae explode. Recent progresses on both the macroscopic and microscopic effects that affect core-collapse supernovae are discussed.

Lipschitz equivalence of self-similar sets with touching structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruan, Huo-Jun; Wang, Yang; Xi, Li-Feng

2014-01-01

Lipschitz equivalence of self-similar sets is an important area in the study of fractal geometry. It is known that two dust-like self-similar sets with the same contraction ratios are always Lipschitz equivalent. However, when self-similar sets have touching structures the problem of Lipschitz equivalence becomes much more challenging and intriguing at the same time. So far, all the known results only cover self-similar sets in R with no more than three branches. In this study we establish results for the Lipschitz equivalence of self-similar sets with touching structures in R with arbitrarily many branches. Key to our study is the introduction of a geometric condition for self-similar sets called substitutable. (paper)

Tacit coordination in social dilemmas: the importance of having a common understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

van Dijk, Eric; de Kwaadsteniet, Erik W; De Cremer, David

2009-03-01

Previous research has indicated that in social dilemmas, people tacitly coordinate their decisions by using the equal division rule. In 3 experimental studies, the authors investigated the extent to which a common understanding about task and behavioral requirements is essential for the tacit coordination process. The results show that people are less likely to coordinate on the equal division rule when collective feedback on past performance (Study 1), the distribution of information within the group (Study 2), or expected behavioral variance (Study 3) suggests that a common understanding in the group is lacking. Moreover, the results indicate that under these conditions, rather than adhering to the equal division rule, people base their decisions on their own social value orientations. The findings support the view that if situations provide insufficient cues for tacit coordination, people are more likely to decide on the basis of their personal characteristics.

Valuation of Understanding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiberg, Merete

An important aim for the teacher in Higher Education is that students, in order to learn, achieve understanding in terms of being able to handle knowledge in a certain way. In this paper focus will be on understanding as a phenomenon which is permeated with values of what good understanding might...... be. Understanding is to be discussed as a phenomenon which in its definition is relative to the paradigm of educational thinking in which it is embedded. Paradigms of valuation of understanding in higher education will be viewed from two perspectives: An anglosaxon curriculum studies tradition...

Bilateral Trade Flows and Income Distribution Similarity

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

Current models of bilateral trade neglect the effects of income distribution. This paper addresses the issue by accounting for non-homothetic consumer preferences and hence investigating the role of income distribution in the context of the gravity model of trade. A theoretically justified gravity model is estimated for disaggregated trade data (Dollar volume is used as dependent variable) using a sample of 104 exporters and 108 importers for 1980–2003 to achieve two main goals. We define and calculate new measures of income distribution similarity and empirically confirm that greater similarity of income distribution between countries implies more trade. Using distribution-based measures as a proxy for demand similarities in gravity models, we find consistent and robust support for the hypothesis that countries with more similar income-distributions trade more with each other. The hypothesis is also confirmed at disaggregated level for differentiated product categories. PMID:27137462

From Headline to Hard Grind: The Importance of Understanding Public Administration in Achieving Health OutcomesComment on "Understanding the Role of Public Administration in Implementing Action on the Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities".

Science.gov (United States)

O'Flynn, Janine

2016-04-30

Many public policy programs fail to translate ambitious headlines to on-the-ground action. The reasons for this are many and varied, but for public administration and management scholars a large part of the gap between ambition and achievement is the challenge associated with the operation of the machinery of government itself, and how it relates to the other parties that it relies on to fulfill these outcomes. In their article, Carey and Friel set out key reasons why public health scholars should seek to better understand important ideas in public administration. In commenting on their contribution, I draw out two critical questions that are raised by this discussion: (i) what are boundaries and what forms do they take? and (ii) why work across boundaries? Expanding on these key questions extends the points made by Carey and Friel on the importance of understanding public administration and will better place public health scholars and practitioners to realise health outcomes. © 2016 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

Engagement: Looking beyond the mirror to understand action understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, Vasudevi; Uithol, Sebo

2016-03-01

In this paper, we argue that the current focus on mirroring as the route to explaining the development of action understanding is misleading and problematic. It facilitates a fundamentally spectatorial stance, ignoring engagement and dialogue; it focuses on similarity between self and other and neglects difference; and it succumbs to the static terminology of mechanism rather than a dynamic language of process. Contrary to this view, dialogic exchanges are evident from the start of life, revealing infants' ability to engage with and respond appropriately to actions that are outside their own motor repertoire. We suggest that engagement rather than mirroring better accounts for many current findings in action understanding. The neurological evidence to date shows that action perception involves a process of continuous synchronization and change, suggesting that it might be more fruitful for research and theory to look beyond mirroring and instead adopt dynamic processual explanations of action understanding within interaction. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Enzyme sequence similarity improves the reaction alignment method for cross-species pathway comparison

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ovacik, Meric A. [Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States); Androulakis, Ioannis P., E-mail: yannis@rci.rutgers.edu [Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States); Biomedical Engineering Department, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States)

2013-09-15

Pathway-based information has become an important source of information for both establishing evolutionary relationships and understanding the mode of action of a chemical or pharmaceutical among species. Cross-species comparison of pathways can address two broad questions: comparison in order to inform evolutionary relationships and to extrapolate species differences used in a number of different applications including drug and toxicity testing. Cross-species comparison of metabolic pathways is complex as there are multiple features of a pathway that can be modeled and compared. Among the various methods that have been proposed, reaction alignment has emerged as the most successful at predicting phylogenetic relationships based on NCBI taxonomy. We propose an improvement of the reaction alignment method by accounting for sequence similarity in addition to reaction alignment method. Using nine species, including human and some model organisms and test species, we evaluate the standard and improved comparison methods by analyzing glycolysis and citrate cycle pathways conservation. In addition, we demonstrate how organism comparison can be conducted by accounting for the cumulative information retrieved from nine pathways in central metabolism as well as a more complete study involving 36 pathways common in all nine species. Our results indicate that reaction alignment with enzyme sequence similarity results in a more accurate representation of pathway specific cross-species similarities and differences based on NCBI taxonomy.

Enzyme sequence similarity improves the reaction alignment method for cross-species pathway comparison

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ovacik, Meric A.; Androulakis, Ioannis P.

2013-01-01

Pathway-based information has become an important source of information for both establishing evolutionary relationships and understanding the mode of action of a chemical or pharmaceutical among species. Cross-species comparison of pathways can address two broad questions: comparison in order to inform evolutionary relationships and to extrapolate species differences used in a number of different applications including drug and toxicity testing. Cross-species comparison of metabolic pathways is complex as there are multiple features of a pathway that can be modeled and compared. Among the various methods that have been proposed, reaction alignment has emerged as the most successful at predicting phylogenetic relationships based on NCBI taxonomy. We propose an improvement of the reaction alignment method by accounting for sequence similarity in addition to reaction alignment method. Using nine species, including human and some model organisms and test species, we evaluate the standard and improved comparison methods by analyzing glycolysis and citrate cycle pathways conservation. In addition, we demonstrate how organism comparison can be conducted by accounting for the cumulative information retrieved from nine pathways in central metabolism as well as a more complete study involving 36 pathways common in all nine species. Our results indicate that reaction alignment with enzyme sequence similarity results in a more accurate representation of pathway specific cross-species similarities and differences based on NCBI taxonomy

Measuring structural similarity in large online networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Yongren; Macy, Michael

2016-09-01

Structural similarity based on bipartite graphs can be used to detect meaningful communities, but the networks have been tiny compared to massive online networks. Scalability is important in applications involving tens of millions of individuals with highly skewed degree distributions. Simulation analysis holding underlying similarity constant shows that two widely used measures - Jaccard index and cosine similarity - are biased by the distribution of out-degree in web-scale networks. However, an alternative measure, the Standardized Co-incident Ratio (SCR), is unbiased. We apply SCR to members of Congress, musical artists, and professional sports teams to show how massive co-following on Twitter can be used to map meaningful affiliations among cultural entities, even in the absence of direct connections to one another. Our results show how structural similarity can be used to map cultural alignments and demonstrate the potential usefulness of social media data in the study of culture, politics, and organizations across the social and behavioral sciences. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessing semantic similarity of texts - Methods and algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Rozeva, Anna; Zerkova, Silvia

2017-12-01

Assessing the semantic similarity of texts is an important part of different text-related applications like educational systems, information retrieval, text summarization, etc. This task is performed by sophisticated analysis, which implements text-mining techniques. Text mining involves several pre-processing steps, which provide for obtaining structured representative model of the documents in a corpus by means of extracting and selecting the features, characterizing their content. Generally the model is vector-based and enables further analysis with knowledge discovery approaches. Algorithms and measures are used for assessing texts at syntactical and semantic level. An important text-mining method and similarity measure is latent semantic analysis (LSA). It provides for reducing the dimensionality of the document vector space and better capturing the text semantics. The mathematical background of LSA for deriving the meaning of the words in a given text by exploring their co-occurrence is examined. The algorithm for obtaining the vector representation of words and their corresponding latent concepts in a reduced multidimensional space as well as similarity calculation are presented.

Understanding the importance of an energy crisis

Science.gov (United States)

Mechtenberg, Abigail Reid

Human development and energy, in general, and electrical energy, specifically, co-exist seamlessly in high HDI countries where reliability and availability is greater than 99%. In numerous low HDI countries, there is 2-50% electric grid availability with reliability at or below 50% due to load shedding and faults. In Africa, solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric energy production are cited to meet growing demand and increase reliability and availability; however, the capital costs are greater than the ability-to-pay for wide scale implementation. Since the 1970s, the United States has continued to argue over the new sustainable energy infrastructure solution(s); thus resulting in no new infrastructure being built for wide scale implementation. Together the world is facing the daunting task of averting an energy crisis in developed countries and facing energy crises in developing countries. This thesis explores the importance of energy crises: from the past, current, and future. The first part entails arguing that the United States is not on a pathway to prevent an energy crisis based on an analysis of 1986 and 2004 niche and status-quo manufacturing of light-duty vehicles. The second part answers the question of what an energy crisis looks like by exploring and investigating current electrical energy crises in Fort Portal, Uganda. This part used both anthropological and physics education empowerment research to co-design and build for various energy crisis situations in hospitals, schools, and businesses all from locally available materials and expertise. Finally, looking into the US light-duty vehicle's future, I design a new hybrid vehicle powertrain (called transition mode hybrid). This third part describes my new patent as a way to avert an energy crisis in the light-duty transportation sector.

Phosphorus Import Dependency and Recycling Potential in the Global Phosphorus Mosaic

Science.gov (United States)

Powers, S. M.

2017-12-01

Nations differ widely in terms of recent P consumption trends and fertilizer trade dependencies, reflecting dynamic and globally uneven P fertilizer production, consumption, export, and import. Recovered P from urban and agricultural wastes can provide renewable sources that supplant the need to import P fertilizer, but to date, research on P recycling potential has been highly spatially segregated. Understanding of the global distribution of P recycling potential and options, and how these intersect with P import dependencies, could be used to guide long-term, spatially-prioritized planning for P, food, and water security. We integrated recent data on national P fertilizer flows, subnational P use, and landscape features within a global grid to understand how these constraints on future options for P use are distributed worldwide. This analysis illustrates several regions where combinations of high population density, cropland extent, and manure P production provide islands of opportunity for P recycling in mixed crop-livestock and populous agricultural areas. At the same time, nations with lower import ratios (net P import:consumption) contained a disproportionately large share of manure-rich croplands and populous croplands. As a further demonstration of the kinds of integrated comparisons that are possible using global land use data sets in combination with P, worldwide similarities and distinctions for P emerged from a cluster analysis. These kinds of socioeconomic-geographic patterns may foretell distinct P futures as societies address spatially uneven options for P, food, and water security.

IMPORTANCE OF MARKET UNDERSTANDING AS A DEVELOPMENT ASSUMPTION OF FAMILY FARMS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Zmaić

2002-12-01

Full Text Available The system of agricultural products must adjust to the numerous quality as well as quantity changes of the environment, and for such a successful adjustment, a certain knowledge of the market itself is absolutely necessary. The importance of agricultural products market is caused by the fact that it helps agricultural producers for a better sight of consumers’ requests with a purpose of meeting their needs. Defining of the basic characteristics of a market system and its importance are the primal points for the successful functioning of the agricultural activities related to the agricultural products sale. It means that aforesaid affects forming price which in turns affects the income height through the total sold agricultural products used by producers use as a motivation for increasing production. Development of agricultural production and importance of market facts are researched from the point of characteristic and specific market system, supply and demand, price trends and agriculture politics. The paper focused the fact which should be realized by agricultural producers. It comprises the importance of the adjustment to the needs of modern market, taking into account sizes and agricultural production program, as well as delivery time limit and the products sale on the market.

Spatiotemporal dynamics in understanding hand—object interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Avanzini, Pietro; Fabbri-Destro, Maddalena; Campi, Cristina; Pascarella, Annalisa; Barchiesi, Guido; Cattaneo, Luigi; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

2013-01-01

It is generally accepted that visual perception results from the activation of a feed-forward hierarchy of areas, leading to increasingly complex representations. Here we present evidence for a fundamental role of backward projections to the occipito-temporal region for understanding conceptual object properties. The evidence is based on two studies. In the first study, using high-density EEG, we showed that during the observation of how objects are used there is an early activation of occipital and temporal areas, subsequently reaching the pole of the temporal lobe, and a late reactivation of the visual areas. In the second study, using transcranial magnetic stimulation over the occipital lobe, we showed a clear impairment in the accuracy of recognition of how objects are used during both early activation and, most importantly, late occipital reactivation. These findings represent strong neurophysiological evidence that a top-down mechanism is fundamental for understanding conceptual object properties, and suggest that a similar mechanism might be also present for other higher-order cognitive functions. PMID:24043805

A Cross-Lingual Similarity Measure for Detecting Biomedical Term Translations

Science.gov (United States)

Bollegala, Danushka; Kontonatsios, Georgios; Ananiadou, Sophia

2015-01-01

Bilingual dictionaries for technical terms such as biomedical terms are an important resource for machine translation systems as well as for humans who would like to understand a concept described in a foreign language. Often a biomedical term is first proposed in English and later it is manually translated to other languages. Despite the fact that there are large monolingual lexicons of biomedical terms, only a fraction of those term lexicons are translated to other languages. Manually compiling large-scale bilingual dictionaries for technical domains is a challenging task because it is difficult to find a sufficiently large number of bilingual experts. We propose a cross-lingual similarity measure for detecting most similar translation candidates for a biomedical term specified in one language (source) from another language (target). Specifically, a biomedical term in a language is represented using two types of features: (a) intrinsic features that consist of character n-grams extracted from the term under consideration, and (b) extrinsic features that consist of unigrams and bigrams extracted from the contextual windows surrounding the term under consideration. We propose a cross-lingual similarity measure using each of those feature types. First, to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space in each language, we propose prototype vector projection (PVP)—a non-negative lower-dimensional vector projection method. Second, we propose a method to learn a mapping between the feature spaces in the source and target language using partial least squares regression (PLSR). The proposed method requires only a small number of training instances to learn a cross-lingual similarity measure. The proposed PVP method outperforms popular dimensionality reduction methods such as the singular value decomposition (SVD) and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) in a nearest neighbor prediction task. Moreover, our experimental results covering several language pairs such as

A cross-lingual similarity measure for detecting biomedical term translations.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danushka Bollegala

Full Text Available Bilingual dictionaries for technical terms such as biomedical terms are an important resource for machine translation systems as well as for humans who would like to understand a concept described in a foreign language. Often a biomedical term is first proposed in English and later it is manually translated to other languages. Despite the fact that there are large monolingual lexicons of biomedical terms, only a fraction of those term lexicons are translated to other languages. Manually compiling large-scale bilingual dictionaries for technical domains is a challenging task because it is difficult to find a sufficiently large number of bilingual experts. We propose a cross-lingual similarity measure for detecting most similar translation candidates for a biomedical term specified in one language (source from another language (target. Specifically, a biomedical term in a language is represented using two types of features: (a intrinsic features that consist of character n-grams extracted from the term under consideration, and (b extrinsic features that consist of unigrams and bigrams extracted from the contextual windows surrounding the term under consideration. We propose a cross-lingual similarity measure using each of those feature types. First, to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space in each language, we propose prototype vector projection (PVP--a non-negative lower-dimensional vector projection method. Second, we propose a method to learn a mapping between the feature spaces in the source and target language using partial least squares regression (PLSR. The proposed method requires only a small number of training instances to learn a cross-lingual similarity measure. The proposed PVP method outperforms popular dimensionality reduction methods such as the singular value decomposition (SVD and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF in a nearest neighbor prediction task. Moreover, our experimental results covering several language

Understanding nurses' and parents' perceptions of family-centred care.

Science.gov (United States)

Stuart, Megan; Melling, Sally

2014-09-01

To explore and compare differences between parents' and nurses' perceptions of family-centred care (FCC) for children's acute short-stay admissions. Mixed-method questionnaires were designed to compare care task delegation between nurse and parent participants in the study. Parents and nurses had similar perceptions of task allocation in FCC. Parents generally were prepared to undertake basic care tasks only, rather than help with nursing interventions. Nurses had a comprehensive understanding of FCC. Most parents were not able to define FCC but carried it out naturally. In the UK, nurses and parents have similar expectations of FCC. It is unusual for parents to be given information or opportunities to engage in the care of the child beyond everyday tasks. The investigation highlighted the importance of negotiating with family members on each separate admission because, although most parents would be comfortable undertaking care tasks, each family and each situation is different.

Morality, responsibility and risk: the importance of alternative perspectives in vaccination research.

Science.gov (United States)

Lyons, Antonia C

2014-02-01

The four papers presented in this special section together provide a striking example of the importance of eliciting people's understandings and meanings of vaccinations, from parents and children to health and medical professionals. This commentary reflects on the findings of the papers in this special section and considers them within a broader sociocultural view on vaccination research. The four papers in the special section were integrated with previous research and scholarship on public health and vaccinations. The studies demonstrate how both uptake of vaccinations and their meanings vary by cultural context, most notably across Eastern and Western Europe, and the fundamental role that political, economic and healthcare systems play. Nevertheless, there are many similarities across seemingly diverse contexts. Three specific tensions are apparent across the findings (and within other vaccination research). These tensions revolve around (1) responsible citizen versus responsible individual, (2) scientific knowledge versus lay understandings and (3) uncertainty and risk versus certainty and trust. Threaded through these tensions are discourses around citizenship, trust, morality, gender and power that are important to consider in research on vaccinations.

An improved label propagation algorithm based on node importance and random walk for community detection

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Tianren; Xia, Zhengyou

2017-05-01

Currently, with the rapid development of information technology, the electronic media for social communication is becoming more and more popular. Discovery of communities is a very effective way to understand the properties of complex networks. However, traditional community detection algorithms consider the structural characteristics of a social organization only, with more information about nodes and edges wasted. In the meanwhile, these algorithms do not consider each node on its merits. Label propagation algorithm (LPA) is a near linear time algorithm which aims to find the community in the network. It attracts many scholars owing to its high efficiency. In recent years, there are more improved algorithms that were put forward based on LPA. In this paper, an improved LPA based on random walk and node importance (NILPA) is proposed. Firstly, a list of node importance is obtained through calculation. The nodes in the network are sorted in descending order of importance. On the basis of random walk, a matrix is constructed to measure the similarity of nodes and it avoids the random choice in the LPA. Secondly, a new metric IAS (importance and similarity) is calculated by node importance and similarity matrix, which we can use to avoid the random selection in the original LPA and improve the algorithm stability. Finally, a test in real-world and synthetic networks is given. The result shows that this algorithm has better performance than existing methods in finding community structure.

Inter Genre Similarity Modelling For Automatic Music Genre Classification

OpenAIRE

Bagci, Ulas; Erzin, Engin

2009-01-01

Music genre classification is an essential tool for music information retrieval systems and it has been finding critical applications in various media platforms. Two important problems of the automatic music genre classification are feature extraction and classifier design. This paper investigates inter-genre similarity modelling (IGS) to improve the performance of automatic music genre classification. Inter-genre similarity information is extracted over the mis-classified feature population....

Presumed cultural similarity paradox : Expatriate adjustment and performance across the border or over the globe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vromans, P.; van Engen, M.L.; Mol, S.

2013-01-01

Purpose To introduce the presumed cultural similarity paradox as a possible explanation for the findings that adjusting to a culturally similar country is just as difficult as adjusting to a culturally dissimilar country. We provide a conceptual framework, enabling further understanding and research

Presumed cultural similarity paradox: expatriate adjustment and performance across the border or over the globe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vromans, P.; van Engen, M.; Mol, S.

2013-01-01

Purpose - To introduce the presumed cultural similarity paradox as a possible explanation for the findings that adjusting to a culturally similar country is just as difficult as adjusting to a culturally dissimilar country. We provide a conceptual framework, enabling further understanding and

Distributional and Knowledge-Based Approaches for Computing Portuguese Word Similarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Identifying similar and related words is not only key in natural language understanding but also a suitable task for assessing the quality of computational resources that organise words and meanings of a language, compiled by different means. This paper, which aims to be a reference for those interested in computing word similarity in Portuguese, presents several approaches for this task and is motivated by the recent availability of state-of-the-art distributional models of Portuguese words, which add to several lexical knowledge bases (LKBs for this language, available for a longer time. The previous resources were exploited to answer word similarity tests, which also became recently available for Portuguese. We conclude that there are several valid approaches for this task, but not one that outperforms all the others in every single test. Distributional models seem to capture relatedness better, while LKBs are better suited for computing genuine similarity, but, in general, better results are obtained when knowledge from different sources is combined.

SimilarityExplorer: A visual inter-comparison tool for multifaceted climate data

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J. Poco; A. Dasgupta; Y. Wei; W. Hargrove; C. Schwalm; R. Cook; E. Bertini; C. Silva

2014-01-01

Inter-comparison and similarity analysis to gauge consensus among multiple simulation models is a critical visualization problem for understanding climate change patterns. Climate models, specifically, Terrestrial Biosphere Models (TBM) represent time and space variable ecosystem processes, for example, simulations of photosynthesis and respiration, using algorithms...

Cultural similarities and differences in medical professionalism: a multi-region study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chandratilake, Madawa; McAleer, Sean; Gibson, John

2012-03-01

Over the last two decades, many medical educators have sought to define professionalism. Initial attempts to do so were focused on defining professionalism in a manner that allowed for universal agreement. This quest was later transformed into an effort to 'understand professionalism' as many researchers realised that professionalism is a social construct and is culture-sensitive. The determination of cultural differences in the understanding of professionalism, however, has been subject to very little research, possibly because of the practical difficulties of doing so. In this multi-region study, we illustrate the universal and culture-specific aspects of medical professionalism as it is perceived by medical practitioners. Forty-six professional attributes were identified by reviewing the literature. A total of 584 medical practitioners, representing the UK, Europe, North America and Asia, participated in a survey in which they indicated the importance of each of these attributes. We determined the 'essentialness' of each attribute in different geographic regions using the content validity index, supplemented with kappa statistics. With acceptable levels of consensus, all regional groups identified 29 attributes as 'essential', thereby indicating the universality of these professional attributes, and six attributes as non-essential. The essentialness of the rest varied by regional group. This study has helped to identify regional similarities and dissimilarities in understandings of professionalism, most of which can be explained by cultural differences in line with the theories of cultural dimensions and cultural value. However, certain dissonances among regions may well be attributable to socio-economic factors. Some of the responses appear to be counter-cultural and demonstrate practitioners' keenness to overcome cultural barriers in order to provide better patient care. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012.

Cultural Similarities and Differences on Idiom Translation

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

黄频频; 陈于全

2010-01-01

Both English and Chinese are abound with idioms. Idioms are an important part of the hnguage and culture of a society. English and Chinese idioms carved with cultural characteristics account for a great part in the tramlation. This paper studies the translation of idioms concerning their cultural similarities, cultural differences and transhtion principles.

The Understanding of Emotion among Young Chinese Children

OpenAIRE

Tang, Yulong; Harris, Paul L.; Pons, Francisco; Zou, Hong; Zhang, Wenjuan; Xu, Qunxia

2017-01-01

The development of emotion understanding in young Chinese children was examined. The overall trend in the development of emotion understanding among Chinese preschoolers – as measured by the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) proved similar to that found among preschoolers in Western Europe. However, Chinese children performed better at understanding the distinction between real and apparent emotion and worse at understanding the connection between reminders and emotion. Children’s theory of...

On the Power and Limits of Sequence Similarity Based Clustering of Proteins Into Families

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiwie, Christian; Röttger, Richard

2017-01-01

Over the last decades, we have observed an ongoing tremendous growth of available sequencing data fueled by the advancements in wet-lab technology. The sequencing information is only the beginning of the actual understanding of how organisms survive and prosper. It is, for instance, equally...... important to also unravel the proteomic repertoire of an organism. A classical computational approach for detecting protein families is a sequence-based similarity calculation coupled with a subsequent cluster analysis. In this work we have intensively analyzed various clustering tools on a large scale. We...... used the data to investigate the behavior of the tools' parameters underlining the diversity of the protein families. Furthermore, we trained regression models for predicting the expected performance of a clustering tool for an unknown data set and aimed to also suggest optimal parameters...

A network biology approach to understanding the importance of chameleon proteins in human physiology and pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahramali, Golnaz; Goliaei, Bahram; Minuchehr, Zarrin; Marashi, Sayed-Amir

2017-02-01

Chameleon proteins are proteins which include sequences that can adopt α-helix-β-strand (HE-chameleon) or α-helix-coil (HC-chameleon) or β-strand-coil (CE-chameleon) structures to operate their crucial biological functions. In this study, using a network-based approach, we examined the chameleon proteins to give a better knowledge on these proteins. We focused on proteins with identical chameleon sequences with more than or equal to seven residues long in different PDB entries, which adopt HE-chameleon, HC-chameleon, and CE-chameleon structures in the same protein. One hundred and ninety-one human chameleon proteins were identified via our in-house program. Then, protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks, Gene ontology (GO) enrichment, disease network, and pathway enrichment analyses were performed for our derived data set. We discovered that there are chameleon sequences which reside in protein-protein interaction regions between two proteins critical for their dual function. Analysis of the PPI networks for chameleon proteins introduced five hub proteins, namely TP53, EGFR, HSP90AA1, PPARA, and HIF1A, which were presented in four PPI clusters. The outcomes demonstrate that the chameleon regions are in critical domains of these proteins and are important in the development and treatment of human cancers. The present report is the first network-based functional study of chameleon proteins using computational approaches and might provide a new perspective for understanding the mechanisms of diseases helping us in developing new medical therapies along with discovering new proteins with chameleon properties which are highly important in cancer.

The importance of international ISO standards application for enterprise management and ensuring customer satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Babić Jasna

2011-01-01

Full Text Available ISO standards contain requirements for quality management, environmental management, food safety management, information security systems management, risks management, social responsibility management, etc. The organizations, whose employees at all organizational levels understand the importance of correct use of standards and effects of their use, make efforts for continuous improvement of management systems. The improvements are realized through the application of requirements of certificated standardized quality systems and similar non certified standards and through application of different business excellence models.

Understanding the Structure of Bones

Science.gov (United States)

OI Issues: Understanding Bone Structure Introduction: Structural Organization of Bone The structure of bone is very similar to reinforced concrete that is used to make a building or a bridge. When the building or bridge is first assembled, an initial frame ...

On the Association Between Self-Reported Own- and Other-Gender Similarity and the Use of Physical and Relational Aggression in Sixth Grade Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Andrews, Naomi C Z; Martin, Carol Lynn; Gallagher, Annabella M

2016-10-01

The goal was to assess the association between felt similarity to each gender (an aspect of gender identity) and girls' and boys' differential use of relational versus physical aggression. We extend past research on gender differences in the use of aggression by expanding the gender dichotomy and allowing for more variations in an individual's gender identity. Students (N = 414, 47 % female, 6th grade) reported how similar they felt to both their own- and other-gender peers, from which cluster analyses derived four typologies of perceived gender similarity (those who feel similar to their own-gender group; those who feel similar to the other-gender group; those who feel similar to both gender groups; those who feel similar to neither gender group). Peers reported which classmates were relationally and physically aggressive. Analyses compared how girls and boys in each typology of gender similarity differed in their use of relational and physical aggression. Results indicated that most children were engaged in gender normative aggression more than gender non-normative aggression (with the notable exception of low-gender similar girls). Findings were discussed in terms of their importance both for examining a broad spectrum of gender similarity and for understanding the use of aggressive behavior among children.

New similarity of triangular fuzzy number and its application.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xixiang; Ma, Weimin; Chen, Liping

2014-01-01

The similarity of triangular fuzzy numbers is an important metric for application of it. There exist several approaches to measure similarity of triangular fuzzy numbers. However, some of them are opt to be large. To make the similarity well distributed, a new method SIAM (Shape's Indifferent Area and Midpoint) to measure triangular fuzzy number is put forward, which takes the shape's indifferent area and midpoint of two triangular fuzzy numbers into consideration. Comparison with other similarity measurements shows the effectiveness of the proposed method. Then, it is applied to collaborative filtering recommendation to measure users' similarity. A collaborative filtering case is used to illustrate users' similarity based on cloud model and triangular fuzzy number; the result indicates that users' similarity based on triangular fuzzy number can obtain better discrimination. Finally, a simulated collaborative filtering recommendation system is developed which uses cloud model and triangular fuzzy number to express users' comprehensive evaluation on items, and result shows that the accuracy of collaborative filtering recommendation based on triangular fuzzy number is higher.

Improved cosine similarity measures of simplified neutrosophic sets for medical diagnoses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ye, Jun

2015-03-01

In pattern recognition and medical diagnosis, similarity measure is an important mathematical tool. To overcome some disadvantages of existing cosine similarity measures of simplified neutrosophic sets (SNSs) in vector space, this paper proposed improved cosine similarity measures of SNSs based on cosine function, including single valued neutrosophic cosine similarity measures and interval neutrosophic cosine similarity measures. Then, weighted cosine similarity measures of SNSs were introduced by taking into account the importance of each element. Further, a medical diagnosis method using the improved cosine similarity measures was proposed to solve medical diagnosis problems with simplified neutrosophic information. The improved cosine similarity measures between SNSs were introduced based on cosine function. Then, we compared the improved cosine similarity measures of SNSs with existing cosine similarity measures of SNSs by numerical examples to demonstrate their effectiveness and rationality for overcoming some shortcomings of existing cosine similarity measures of SNSs in some cases. In the medical diagnosis method, we can find a proper diagnosis by the cosine similarity measures between the symptoms and considered diseases which are represented by SNSs. Then, the medical diagnosis method based on the improved cosine similarity measures was applied to two medical diagnosis problems to show the applications and effectiveness of the proposed method. Two numerical examples all demonstrated that the improved cosine similarity measures of SNSs based on the cosine function can overcome the shortcomings of the existing cosine similarity measures between two vectors in some cases. By two medical diagnoses problems, the medical diagnoses using various similarity measures of SNSs indicated the identical diagnosis results and demonstrated the effectiveness and rationality of the diagnosis method proposed in this paper. The improved cosine measures of SNSs based on cosine

Towards Personalized Medicine: Leveraging Patient Similarity and Drug Similarity Analytics

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ping; Wang, Fei; Hu, Jianying; Sorrentino, Robert

2014-01-01

The rapid adoption of electronic health records (EHR) provides a comprehensive source for exploratory and predictive analytic to support clinical decision-making. In this paper, we investigate how to utilize EHR to tailor treatments to individual patients based on their likelihood to respond to a therapy. We construct a heterogeneous graph which includes two domains (patients and drugs) and encodes three relationships (patient similarity, drug similarity, and patient-drug prior associations). We describe a novel approach for performing a label propagation procedure to spread the label information representing the effectiveness of different drugs for different patients over this heterogeneous graph. The proposed method has been applied on a real-world EHR dataset to help identify personalized treatments for hypercholesterolemia. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach and suggest that the combination of appropriate patient similarity and drug similarity analytics could lead to actionable insights for personalized medicine. Particularly, by leveraging drug similarity in combination with patient similarity, our method could perform well even on new or rarely used drugs for which there are few records of known past performance. PMID:25717413

Understanding trade pathways to target biosecurity surveillance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuel Colunga-Garcia

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Increasing trends in global trade make it extremely difficult to prevent the entry of all potential invasive species (IS. Establishing early detection strategies thus becomes an important part of the continuum used to reduce the introduction of invasive species. One part necessary to ensure the success of these strategies is the determination of priority survey areas based on invasion pressure. We used a pathway-centred conceptual model of pest invasion to address these questions: what role does global trade play in invasion pressure of plant ecosystems and how could an understanding of this role be used to enhance early detection strategies? We concluded that the relative level of invasion pressure for destination ecosystems can be influenced by the intensity of pathway usage (import volume and frequency, the number and type of pathways with a similar destination, and the number of different ecological regions that serve as the source for imports to the same destination. As these factors increase, pressure typically intensifies because of increasing a propagule pressure, b likelihood of transporting pests with higher intrinsic invasion potential, and c likelihood of transporting pests into ecosystems with higher invasibility. We used maritime containerized imports of live plants into the contiguous U.S. as a case study to illustrate the practical implications of the model to determine hotspot areas of relative invasion pressure for agricultural and forest ecosystems (two ecosystems with high potential invasibility. Our results illustrated the importance of how a pathway-centred model could be used to highlight potential target areas for early detection strategies for IS. Many of the hotspots in agricultural and forest ecosystems were within major U.S. metropolitan areas. Invasion ecologists can utilize pathway-centred conceptual models to a better understand the role of human-mediated pathways in pest establishment, b enhance current

Conceptions of Musical Understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Hallam, Susan; Papageorgi, Ioulia

2016-01-01

Music can be understood in many ways. This has important implications for music education. The research reported here explored how groups of people conceptualise musical understanding and what they believe supports its acquisition. In this study 463 participants completed two statements: "Musical understanding is" and "You learn to…

An Understanding of The Maritime Silk Road International Strategic Importance

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Lin; Hongyu

2015-01-01

"The Maritime Silk Road"conception has a very significant international strategic importance,and to China,will certainly play a great role in promoting its economic development,which is only on the surface,and an in-depth reading is that it is a top-level strategic design,whose strategic role with the passage of time will be enlarged.In his address to Indonesian National Assembly in October 2013,President Xi

Understanding situation awareness and its importance in patient safety.

Science.gov (United States)

Gluyas, Heather; Harris, Sarah-Jane

2016-04-20

Situation awareness describes an individual's perception, comprehension and subsequent projection of what is going on in the environment around them. The concept of situation awareness sits within the group of non-technical skills that include teamwork, communication and managing hierarchical lines of communication. The importance of non-technical skills has been recognised in safety-critical industries such as aviation, the military, nuclear, and oil and gas. However, health care has been slow to embrace the role of non-technical skills such as situation awareness in improving outcomes and minimising the risk of error. This article explores the concept of situation awareness and the cognitive processes involved in maintaining it. In addition, factors that lead to a loss of situation awareness and strategies to improve situation awareness are discussed.

Dependence centrality similarity: Measuring the diversity of profession levels of interests

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Deng-Cheng; Li, Ming; Wang, Bing-Hong

2017-08-01

To understand the relations between developers and software, we study a collaborative coding platform from the perspective of networks, including follower networks, dependence networks and developer-project bipartite networks. Through the analyzing of degree distribution, PageRank and degree-dependent nearest neighbors' centrality, we find that the degree distributions of all networks have a power-law form except the out-degree distributions of dependence networks. The nearest neighbors' centrality is negatively correlated with degree for developers but fluctuates around the average for projects. In order to measure the diversity of profession levels of interests, a new index called dependence centrality similarity is proposed and the correlation between dependence centrality similarity and degree is investigated. The result shows an obvious negative correlations between dependence centrality similarity and degree.

Feelings of Clinician-Patient Similarity and Trust Influence Pain: Evidence From Simulated Clinical Interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Losin, Elizabeth A Reynolds; Anderson, Steven R; Wager, Tor D

2017-07-01

Pain is influenced by many factors other than external sources of tissue damage. Among these, the clinician-patient relationship is particularly important for pain diagnosis and treatment. However, the effects of the clinician-patient relationship on pain remain underexamined. We tested the hypothesis that patients who believe they share core beliefs and values with their clinician will report less pain than patients who do not. We also measured feelings of perceived clinician-patient similarity and trust to see if these interpersonal factors influenced pain. We did so by experimentally manipulating perceptions of similarity between participants playing the role of clinicians and participants playing the role of patients in simulated clinical interactions. Participants were placed in 2 groups on the basis of their responses to a questionnaire about their personal beliefs and values, and painful thermal stimulation was used as an analog of a painful medical procedure. We found that patients reported feeling more similarity and trust toward their clinician when they were paired with clinicians from their own group. In turn, patients' positive feelings of similarity and trust toward their clinicians-but not clinicians' feelings toward patients or whether the clinician and patient were from the same group-predicted lower pain ratings. Finally, the most anxious patients exhibited the strongest relationship between their feelings about their clinicians and their pain report. These findings increase our understanding of context-driven pain modulation and suggest that interventions aimed at increasing patients' feelings of similarity to and trust in health care providers may help reduce the pain experienced during medical care. We present novel evidence that the clinician-patient relationship can affect the pain experienced during medical care. We found that "patients" in simulated clinical interactions who reported feeling more similarity and trust toward their

Scaling, Similarity, and the Fourth Paradigm for Hydrology

Science.gov (United States)

Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Clark, Martyn; Samaniego, Luis; Verhoest, Niko E. C.; van Emmerik, Tim; Uijlenhoet, Remko; Achieng, Kevin; Franz, Trenton E.; Woods, Ross

2017-01-01

In this synthesis paper addressing hydrologic scaling and similarity, we posit that roadblocks in the search for universal laws of hydrology are hindered by our focus on computational simulation (the third paradigm), and assert that it is time for hydrology to embrace a fourth paradigm of data-intensive science. Advances in information-based hydrologic science, coupled with an explosion of hydrologic data and advances in parameter estimation and modelling, have laid the foundation for a data-driven framework for scrutinizing hydrological scaling and similarity hypotheses. We summarize important scaling and similarity concepts (hypotheses) that require testing, describe a mutual information framework for testing these hypotheses, describe boundary condition, state flux, and parameter data requirements across scales to support testing these hypotheses, and discuss some challenges to overcome while pursuing the fourth hydrological paradigm. We call upon the hydrologic sciences community to develop a focused effort towards adopting the fourth paradigm and apply this to outstanding challenges in scaling and similarity.

Prioritization of candidate disease genes by combining topological similarity and semantic similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bin; Jin, Min; Zeng, Pan

2015-10-01

The identification of gene-phenotype relationships is very important for the treatment of human diseases. Studies have shown that genes causing the same or similar phenotypes tend to interact with each other in a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Thus, many identification methods based on the PPI network model have achieved good results. However, in the PPI network, some interactions between the proteins encoded by candidate gene and the proteins encoded by known disease genes are very weak. Therefore, some studies have combined the PPI network with other genomic information and reported good predictive performances. However, we believe that the results could be further improved. In this paper, we propose a new method that uses the semantic similarity between the candidate gene and known disease genes to set the initial probability vector of a random walk with a restart algorithm in a human PPI network. The effectiveness of our method was demonstrated by leave-one-out cross-validation, and the experimental results indicated that our method outperformed other methods. Additionally, our method can predict new causative genes of multifactor diseases, including Parkinson's disease, breast cancer and obesity. The top predictions were good and consistent with the findings in the literature, which further illustrates the effectiveness of our method. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Do Students Understand Our Course Structure? Implications for Important Classroom Attitudes and Behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Elicker, Joelle D.; Foust, Michelle Singer; Perry, Jennifer L.

2015-01-01

The complexity of a course's structure may influence how well students understand what is expected of them. Using the foundation of the industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology literature, the authors modified a measure of "Perceived System Knowledge" (Williams & Levy, 1992) for employee performance appraisal to be appropriate for…

Understanding the visual resource

Science.gov (United States)

Floyd L. Newby

1971-01-01

Understanding our visual resources involves a complex interweaving of motivation and cognitive recesses; but, more important, it requires that we understand and can identify those characteristics of a landscape that influence the image formation process. From research conducted in Florida, three major variables were identified that appear to have significant effect...

Good Morning from Barrow, Alaska! Helping K-12 students understand the importance of research

Science.gov (United States)

Shelton, M.

2010-12-01

This presentation focuses on how an educator experiences scientific research and how those experiences can help foster K-12 students’ understanding of research being conducted in Barrow, Alaska. According to Zhang and Fulford (1994), real-time electronic field trips help to provide a sense of closeness and relevance. In combination with experts in the field, the electronic experience can help students to better understand the phenomenon being studied, thus strengthening the student’s conceptual knowledge (Zhang & Fulford, 1994). During a seven day research trip to study the arctic sea ice, five rural Virginia teachers and their students participated in Skype sessions with the participating educator and other members of the Radford University research team. The students were able to view the current conditions in Barrow, listen to members of the research team describe what their contributions were to the research, and ask questions about the research and Alaska in general. Collaborations between students and scientist can have long lasting benefits for both educators and students in promoting an understanding of the research process and understanding why our world is changing. By using multimedia venues such as Skype students are able to interact with researchers both visually and verbally, forming the basis for students’ interest in science. A learner’s level of engagement is affected by the use of multimedia, especially the level of cognitive processing. Visual images alone do no promote the development of good problem solving skills. However, the students are able to develop better problem solving skills when both visual images and verbal interactions are used together. As students form higher confidence levels by improving their ability to problem solve, their interest in science also increases. It is possible that this interest could turn into a passion for science, which could result in more students wanting to become scientists or science teachers.

On finding similar items in a stream of transactions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Campagna, Andrea; Pagh, Rasmus

2010-01-01

While there has been a lot of work on finding frequent itemsets in transaction data streams, none of these solve the problem of finding similar pairs according to standard similarity measures. This paper is a first attempt at dealing with this, arguably more important, problem. We start out with ...... in random order, and show that surprisingly, not only is small-space similarity mining possible for the most common similarity measures, but the mining accuracy {\\em improves\\/} with the length of the stream for any fixed support threshold....... with a negative result that also explains the lack of theoretical upper bounds on the space usage of data mining algorithms for finding frequent itemsets: Any algorithm that (even only approximately and with a chance of error) finds the most frequent $k$-itemset must use space $\\Omega...

Prediction of Protein Structural Classes for Low-Similarity Sequences Based on Consensus Sequence and Segmented PSSM

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Yunyun Liang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Prediction of protein structural classes for low-similarity sequences is useful for understanding fold patterns, regulation, functions, and interactions of proteins. It is well known that feature extraction is significant to prediction of protein structural class and it mainly uses protein primary sequence, predicted secondary structure sequence, and position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM. Currently, prediction solely based on the PSSM has played a key role in improving the prediction accuracy. In this paper, we propose a novel method called CSP-SegPseP-SegACP by fusing consensus sequence (CS, segmented PsePSSM, and segmented autocovariance transformation (ACT based on PSSM. Three widely used low-similarity datasets (1189, 25PDB, and 640 are adopted in this paper. Then a 700-dimensional (700D feature vector is constructed and the dimension is decreased to 224D by using principal component analysis (PCA. To verify the performance of our method, rigorous jackknife cross-validation tests are performed on 1189, 25PDB, and 640 datasets. Comparison of our results with the existing PSSM-based methods demonstrates that our method achieves the favorable and competitive performance. This will offer an important complementary to other PSSM-based methods for prediction of protein structural classes for low-similarity sequences.

Self-similarity in applied superconductivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dresner, Lawrence

1981-09-01

Self-similarity is a descriptive term applying to a family of curves. It means that the family is invariant to a one-parameter group of affine (stretching) transformations. The property of self-similarity has been exploited in a wide variety of problems in applied superconductivity, namely, (i) transient distribution of the current among the filaments of a superconductor during charge-up, (ii) steady distribution of current among the filaments of a superconductor near the current leads, (iii) transient heat transfer in superfluid helium, (iv) transient diffusion in cylindrical geometry (important in studying the growth rate of the reacted layer in A15 materials), (v) thermal expulsion of helium from quenching cable-in-conduit conductors, (vi) eddy current heating of irregular plates by slow, ramped fields, and (vii) the specific heat of type-II superconductors. Most, but not all, of the applications involve differential equations, both ordinary and partial. The novel methods explained in this report should prove of great value in other fields, just as they already have done in applied superconductivity. (author)

Detoxification and sensing mechanisms are of similar importance for Cd resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans

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Sarah A. Winter

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The present study employed mass spectrometry (ICP-MS to measure the internal cadmium concentrations (Cdint in Caenorhabditis elegans to determine Cd uptake from a Cd-containing environment as well as Cd release under Cd-free conditions. To analyze the functional role of several ATP binding cassette (ABC transporters (e.g., HMT-1 and MRP-1 and phytochelatin synthase (PCS, we compared wild-type (WT and different mutant strains of C. elegans. As a pre-test on selected mutant strains, several time-resolved experiments were performed to determine the survival rate and avoidance behavior of C. elegans under Cd stress, which confirmed the already known Cd sensitivity of the deletion mutants mrp-1Δ, pcs-1Δ, and hmt-1Δ. In addition, these experiments revealed flight reactions under Cd stress to be almost completely absent in mrp-1Δ mutants. The ICP-MS studies showed Cd uptake to be significantly higher in mrp-1Δ and WT than in hmt-1Δ. As Cd is ingested with food, food refusal due to very early Cd stress and its perception was likely the reason for the reduced Cd uptake of hmt-1Δ. Cd release (detoxification was found to be maximal in mrp-1Δ, minimal in hmt-1Δ, and intermediate in WT. High mortality under Cd stress, food refusal, and minimal Cd release in the case of hmt-1Δ suggest a vital importance of the HMT-1/PCS-1 detoxification system for the survival of C. elegans under Cd stress. High mortality under Cd stress, absence of an avoidance behavior, missing food refusal, and maximal Cd release in the case of mrp-1Δ indicate that MRP-1 is less important for Cd detoxification under severe stress, but is probably important for Cd perception. Accordingly, our results suggest that the survival of WT under Cd stress (or possibly other forms of metal stress primarily depends on the function of the HMT-1/PCS-1 detoxification system and the presence of a sensing mechanism to control the uptake of Cd (or other metals, which keeps internal Cd (or metal

Detoxification and sensing mechanisms are of similar importance for Cd resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Science.gov (United States)

Winter, Sarah A; Dölling, Ramona; Knopf, Burkhard; Mendelski, Martha N; Schäfers, Christoph; Paul, Rüdiger J

2016-10-01

The present study employed mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to measure the internal cadmium concentrations (Cd int ) in Caenorhabditis elegans to determine Cd uptake from a Cd-containing environment as well as Cd release under Cd-free conditions. To analyze the functional role of several ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporters (e.g., HMT-1 and MRP-1) and phytochelatin synthase (PCS), we compared wild-type (WT) and different mutant strains of C. elegans . As a pre-test on selected mutant strains, several time-resolved experiments were performed to determine the survival rate and avoidance behavior of C. elegans under Cd stress, which confirmed the already known Cd sensitivity of the deletion mutants mrp-1 Δ, pcs-1 Δ, and hmt-1 Δ. In addition, these experiments revealed flight reactions under Cd stress to be almost completely absent in mrp-1 Δ mutants. The ICP-MS studies showed Cd uptake to be significantly higher in mrp-1 Δ and WT than in hmt-1 Δ. As Cd is ingested with food, food refusal due to very early Cd stress and its perception was likely the reason for the reduced Cd uptake of hmt-1 Δ. Cd release (detoxification) was found to be maximal in mrp-1 Δ, minimal in hmt-1 Δ, and intermediate in WT. High mortality under Cd stress, food refusal, and minimal Cd release in the case of hmt-1 Δ suggest a vital importance of the HMT-1/PCS-1 detoxification system for the survival of C. elegans under Cd stress. High mortality under Cd stress, absence of an avoidance behavior, missing food refusal, and maximal Cd release in the case of mrp-1 Δ indicate that MRP-1 is less important for Cd detoxification under severe stress, but is probably important for Cd perception. Accordingly, our results suggest that the survival of WT under Cd stress (or possibly other forms of metal stress) primarily depends on the function of the HMT-1/PCS-1 detoxification system and the presence of a sensing mechanism to control the uptake of Cd (or other metals), which keeps internal Cd (or

Designing novel Sn-Bi, Si-C and Ge-C nanostructures, using simple theoretical chemical similarities

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Zdetsis Aristides

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract A framework of simple, transparent and powerful concepts is presented which is based on isoelectronic (or isovalent principles, analogies, regularities and similarities. These analogies could be considered as conceptual extensions of the periodical table of the elements, assuming that two atoms or molecules having the same number of valence electrons would be expected to have similar or homologous properties. In addition, such similar moieties should be able, in principle, to replace each other in more complex structures and nanocomposites. This is only partly true and only occurs under certain conditions which are investigated and reviewed here. When successful, these concepts are very powerful and transparent, leading to a large variety of nanomaterials based on Si and other group 14 elements, similar to well known and well studied analogous materials based on boron and carbon. Such nanomaterias designed in silico include, among many others, Si-C, Sn-Bi, Si-C and Ge-C clusters, rings, nanowheels, nanorodes, nanocages and multidecker sandwiches, as well as silicon planar rings and fullerenes similar to the analogous sp2 bonding carbon structures. It is shown that this pedagogically simple and transparent framework can lead to an endless variety of novel and functional nanomaterials with important potential applications in nanotechnology, nanomedicine and nanobiology. Some of the so called predicted structures have been already synthesized, not necessarily with the same rational and motivation. Finally, it is anticipated that such powerful and transparent rules and analogies, in addition to their predictive power, could also lead to far-reaching interpretations and a deeper understanding of already known results and information.

Floristic similarity and dispersal syndromes in a rocky outcrop in semi-arid Northeastern Brazil.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Elainne Cristina Silva; Lopes, Sérgio de Faria; Melo, José Iranildo Miranda de

2015-09-01

Floristic studies provide valuable information on species richness in a region, and are particularly important if these areas belong to less studied environments, such as rocky outcrops, that may increase our knowledge. An important aspect for species colonization includes the mechanisms of diaspores dispersal in each community; these are essential to understand its structure, dynamics, and the regeneration process, and constitute an important tool for conservation. We developed a floristic survey on a granite-gneiss outcrop with the objective to increase the knowledge on plant diversity, through a floristic similarity analysis and detection of dispersal syndromes of sampled species, in a semi-arid region of Brazil. The fieldwork included collection and observation of the botanical material in loco during a period of 12 months. A total of 161 species belonging to 127 genera and 50 families of angiosperms were recorded. Fabaceae, Asteraceae and Convolvulaceae were the most representative families in number of species. Allophylus quercifolius (Mart.) Radlk. (Capparaceae) and Lafoensia pacari A. St.-Hil. (Lythraceae) represented new records for the State of Paraiba. The autochoric syndrome was the most representative, with 51.5 % of the recorded species; the anemochory was the second most representative syndrome with 26.7 % of the species; and finally the zoochory, representing 22.3 % of the species. The floristic similarity dendrogram showed the formation of three well-defined groups, whose area with the highest value (J = 33.2) is located in a Caatinga region called Cariri Paraibano, while the lowest value observed (J = 5.2), occurred in a settled area in two geomorphological units, a crystalline complex and a plateau region. These results may be due to the varying topographic conditions and edaphic heterogeneity arising from the specific geological formation of the region. These results yet demonstrate that, in rocky outcrops, abiotic syndromes represent an

A Model-Based Approach to Constructing Music Similarity Functions

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Lamere Paul

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Several authors have presented systems that estimate the audio similarity of two pieces of music through the calculation of a distance metric, such as the Euclidean distance, between spectral features calculated from the audio, related to the timbre or pitch of the signal. These features can be augmented with other, temporally or rhythmically based features such as zero-crossing rates, beat histograms, or fluctuation patterns to form a more well-rounded music similarity function. It is our contention that perceptual or cultural labels, such as the genre, style, or emotion of the music, are also very important features in the perception of music. These labels help to define complex regions of similarity within the available feature spaces. We demonstrate a machine-learning-based approach to the construction of a similarity metric, which uses this contextual information to project the calculated features into an intermediate space where a music similarity function that incorporates some of the cultural information may be calculated.

A Model-Based Approach to Constructing Music Similarity Functions

Science.gov (United States)

West, Kris; Lamere, Paul

2006-12-01

Several authors have presented systems that estimate the audio similarity of two pieces of music through the calculation of a distance metric, such as the Euclidean distance, between spectral features calculated from the audio, related to the timbre or pitch of the signal. These features can be augmented with other, temporally or rhythmically based features such as zero-crossing rates, beat histograms, or fluctuation patterns to form a more well-rounded music similarity function. It is our contention that perceptual or cultural labels, such as the genre, style, or emotion of the music, are also very important features in the perception of music. These labels help to define complex regions of similarity within the available feature spaces. We demonstrate a machine-learning-based approach to the construction of a similarity metric, which uses this contextual information to project the calculated features into an intermediate space where a music similarity function that incorporates some of the cultural information may be calculated.

Genetic similarity among commercial oil palm materials based on microsatellite markers

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Diana Arias

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Microsatellite markers are used to determine genetic similarities among individuals and might be used in various applications in breeding programs. For example, knowing the genetic similarity relationships of commercial planting materials helps to better understand their responses to environmental, agronomic and plant health factors. This study assessed 17 microsatellite markers in 9 crosses (D x P of Elaeis guineensis Jacq. from various commercial companies in Malaysia, France, Costa Rica and Colombia, in order to find possible genetic differences and/or similarities. Seventy-seven alleles were obtained, with an average of 4.5 alleles per primer and a range of 2-8 amplified alleles. The results show a significant reduction of alleles, compared to the number of alleles reported for wild oil palm populations. The obtained dendrogram shows the formation of two groups based on their genetic similarity. Group A, with ~76% similarity, contains the commercial material of 3 codes of Deli x La Mé crosses produced in France and Colombia, and group B, with ~66% genetic similarity, includes all the materials produced by commercial companies in Malaysia, France, Costa Rica and Colombia

Coupling effect of nodes popularity and similarity on social network persistence.

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Xiaogang; Jin, Cheng; Huang, Jiaxuan; Min, Yong

2017-02-21

Network robustness represents the ability of networks to withstand failures and perturbations. In social networks, maintenance of individual activities, also called persistence, is significant towards understanding robustness. Previous works usually consider persistence on pre-generated network structures; while in social networks, the network structure is growing with the cascading inactivity of existed individuals. Here, we address this challenge through analysis for nodes under a coevolution model, which characterizes individual activity changes under three network growth modes: following the descending order of nodes' popularity, similarity or uniform random. We show that when nodes possess high spontaneous activities, a popularity-first growth mode obtains highly persistent networks; otherwise, with low spontaneous activities, a similarity-first mode does better. Moreover, a compound growth mode, with the consecutive joining of similar nodes in a short period and mixing a few high popularity nodes, obtains the highest persistence. Therefore, nodes similarity is essential for persistent social networks, while properly coupling popularity with similarity further optimizes the persistence. This demonstrates the evolution of nodes activity not only depends on network topology, but also their connective typology.

Revealing Conceptual Understanding of International Business

Science.gov (United States)

Ashley, Sue; Schaap, Harmen; de Bruijn, Elly

2017-01-01

This study aims to identify an adequate approach for revealing conceptual understanding in higher professional education. Revealing students' conceptual understanding is an important step towards developing effective curricula, assessment and aligned teaching strategies to enhance conceptual understanding in higher education. Essays and concept…

Similarity or dissimilarity in the relations between human service organizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruynooghe, Kevin; Verhaeghe, Mieke; Bracke, Piet

2008-01-01

Exchange theory and homophily theory give rise to counteracting expectations for the interaction between human service organizations. Based on arguments of exchange theory, more interaction is expected between dissimilar organizations having complementary resources. Based on arguments of homophily theory, organizations having similar characteristics are expected to interact more. Interorganizational relations between human service organizations in two regional networks in Flanders are examined in this study. Results indicate that human service organizations tend to cooperate more with similar organizations as several homophily effects but not one effect of dissimilarity were found to be significant. The results of this study contribute to the understanding of interorganizational networks of human service organizations and have implications for the development of integrated care.

Adhesive proteins of stalked and acorn barnacles display homology with low sequence similarities.

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Jaimie-Leigh Jonker

Full Text Available Barnacle adhesion underwater is an important phenomenon to understand for the prevention of biofouling and potential biotechnological innovations, yet so far, identifying what makes barnacle glue proteins 'sticky' has proved elusive. Examination of a broad range of species within the barnacles may be instructive to identify conserved adhesive domains. We add to extensive information from the acorn barnacles (order Sessilia by providing the first protein analysis of a stalked barnacle adhesive, Lepas anatifera (order Lepadiformes. It was possible to separate the L. anatifera adhesive into at least 10 protein bands using SDS-PAGE. Intense bands were present at approximately 30, 70, 90 and 110 kilodaltons (kDa. Mass spectrometry for protein identification was followed by de novo sequencing which detected 52 peptides of 7-16 amino acids in length. None of the peptides matched published or unpublished transcriptome sequences, but some amino acid sequence similarity was apparent between L. anatifera and closely-related Dosima fascicularis. Antibodies against two acorn barnacle proteins (ab-cp-52k and ab-cp-68k showed cross-reactivity in the adhesive glands of L. anatifera. We also analysed the similarity of adhesive proteins across several barnacle taxa, including Pollicipes pollicipes (a stalked barnacle in the order Scalpelliformes. Sequence alignment of published expressed sequence tags clearly indicated that P. pollicipes possesses homologues for the 19 kDa and 100 kDa proteins in acorn barnacles. Homology aside, sequence similarity in amino acid and gene sequences tended to decline as taxonomic distance increased, with minimum similarities of 18-26%, depending on the gene. The results indicate that some adhesive proteins (e.g. 100 kDa are more conserved within barnacles than others (20 kDa.

Similar diversity of Alphaproteobacteria and nitrogenase gene amplicons on two related Sphagnum mosses

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Anastasia eBragina

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Sphagnum mosses represent a main component in ombrotrophic wetlands. They harbor a specific and diverse microbial community with essential functions for the host. To understand extend and degree of host specificity, Sphagnum fallax and S. angustifolium, two phylogenetically closely related species, which show distinct habitat preference with respect to the nutrient level, were analyzed by a multifaceted approach. Microbial fingerprints obtained by PCR-SSCP (single-strand conformation polymorphism using universal, group-specific and functional primers were highly similar. Similarity was confirmed for colonization patterns obtained by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH coupled with confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM: Alphaproteobacteria were the main colonizers inside the hyaline cells of Sphagnum leaves. A deeper survey of Alphaproteobacteria by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing reveals a high diversity with Acidocella, Acidisphaera, Rhodopila and Phenylobacterium as major genera for both mosses. Pathogen defense and nitrogen fixation are important functions of Sphagnum-associated bacteria, which are fulfilled by microbial communities of both Sphagna in a similar way. NifH libraries of Sphagnum-associated microbial communities were characterized by high diversity and abundance of Alphaproteobacteria but contained also diverse amplicons of other taxa, e.g. Cyanobacteria, Geobacter and Spirochaeta. Statistically significant differences between the microbial communities of both Sphagnum species could not be discovered in any of the experimental approach. Our results show that the same close relationship, which exists between the physical, morphological and chemical characteristics of Sphagnum mosses and the ecology and function of bog ecosystems, also connects moss plantlets with their associated bacterial communities.

The importance of spectroscopy for infrared multiphoton excitation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fuss, W.; Kompa, K.L.

1980-07-01

It is substantiated by examples that the infrared spectra of molecules in high vibrational states are similar in width to those of the ground states. Therefore in order to explain collisionless infrared multiphoton excitation, the existence of resonance has to be checked, not only for the first three steps, but for all of them. That is, their (low resolution) spectra should be studied. This review summarizes the spectroscopic mechanisms contributing to multiphoton excitation, which have been suggested to date, including several kinds of rotational compensation and of vibrational level splitting, which cooperate to overcome the anharmonic shift. The spectral quasicontinuum, generated by intensity borrowing, must neither be very broad nor dense, and collisionless vibrational relaxation is only important at very high energies. Knowledge of relatively few spectroscopic detailes helps to understand many details and many differences in multiphoton excitatio. (orig.)

Similarity analyses of chromatographic herbal fingerprints: A review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goodarzi, Mohammad; Russell, Paul J.; Vander Heyden, Yvan

2013-01-01

Graphical abstract: -- Highlights: •Similarity analyses of herbal fingerprints are reviewed. •Different (dis)similarity approaches are discussed. •(Dis)similarity-metrics and exploratory-analysis approaches are illustrated. •Correlation and distance-based measures are overviewed. •Similarity analyses illustrated by several case studies. -- Abstract: Herbal medicines are becoming again more popular in the developed countries because being “natural” and people thus often assume that they are inherently safe. Herbs have also been used worldwide for many centuries in the traditional medicines. The concern of their safety and efficacy has grown since increasing western interest. Herbal materials and their extracts are very complex, often including hundreds of compounds. A thorough understanding of their chemical composition is essential for conducting a safety risk assessment. However, herbal material can show considerable variability. The chemical constituents and their amounts in a herb can be different, due to growing conditions, such as climate and soil, the drying process, the harvest season, etc. Among the analytical methods, chromatographic fingerprinting has been recommended as a potential and reliable methodology for the identification and quality control of herbal medicines. Identification is needed to avoid fraud and adulteration. Currently, analyzing chromatographic herbal fingerprint data sets has become one of the most applied tools in quality assessment of herbal materials. Mostly, the entire chromatographic profiles are used to identify or to evaluate the quality of the herbs investigated. Occasionally only a limited number of compounds are considered. One approach to the safety risk assessment is to determine whether the herbal material is substantially equivalent to that which is either readily consumed in the diet, has a history of application or has earlier been commercialized i.e. to what is considered as reference material. In order

Similarity analyses of chromatographic herbal fingerprints: A review

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goodarzi, Mohammad [Department of Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology, Center for Pharmaceutical Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, B-1090 Brussels (Belgium); Russell, Paul J. [Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, Unilever, Colworth Science Park, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire MK44 1LQ (United Kingdom); Vander Heyden, Yvan, E-mail: yvanvdh@vub.ac.be [Department of Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology, Center for Pharmaceutical Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, B-1090 Brussels (Belgium)

2013-12-04

Graphical abstract: -- Highlights: •Similarity analyses of herbal fingerprints are reviewed. •Different (dis)similarity approaches are discussed. •(Dis)similarity-metrics and exploratory-analysis approaches are illustrated. •Correlation and distance-based measures are overviewed. •Similarity analyses illustrated by several case studies. -- Abstract: Herbal medicines are becoming again more popular in the developed countries because being “natural” and people thus often assume that they are inherently safe. Herbs have also been used worldwide for many centuries in the traditional medicines. The concern of their safety and efficacy has grown since increasing western interest. Herbal materials and their extracts are very complex, often including hundreds of compounds. A thorough understanding of their chemical composition is essential for conducting a safety risk assessment. However, herbal material can show considerable variability. The chemical constituents and their amounts in a herb can be different, due to growing conditions, such as climate and soil, the drying process, the harvest season, etc. Among the analytical methods, chromatographic fingerprinting has been recommended as a potential and reliable methodology for the identification and quality control of herbal medicines. Identification is needed to avoid fraud and adulteration. Currently, analyzing chromatographic herbal fingerprint data sets has become one of the most applied tools in quality assessment of herbal materials. Mostly, the entire chromatographic profiles are used to identify or to evaluate the quality of the herbs investigated. Occasionally only a limited number of compounds are considered. One approach to the safety risk assessment is to determine whether the herbal material is substantially equivalent to that which is either readily consumed in the diet, has a history of application or has earlier been commercialized i.e. to what is considered as reference material. In order

Similarly shaped letters evoke similar colors in grapheme-color synesthesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Brang, David; Rouw, Romke; Ramachandran, V S; Coulson, Seana

2011-04-01

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological condition in which viewing numbers or letters (graphemes) results in the concurrent sensation of color. While the anatomical substrates underlying this experience are well understood, little research to date has investigated factors influencing the particular colors associated with particular graphemes or how synesthesia occurs developmentally. A recent suggestion of such an interaction has been proposed in the cascaded cross-tuning (CCT) model of synesthesia, which posits that in synesthetes connections between grapheme regions and color area V4 participate in a competitive activation process, with synesthetic colors arising during the component-stage of grapheme processing. This model more directly suggests that graphemes sharing similar component features (lines, curves, etc.) should accordingly activate more similar synesthetic colors. To test this proposal, we created and regressed synesthetic color-similarity matrices for each of 52 synesthetes against a letter-confusability matrix, an unbiased measure of visual similarity among graphemes. Results of synesthetes' grapheme-color correspondences indeed revealed that more similarly shaped graphemes corresponded with more similar synesthetic colors, with stronger effects observed in individuals with more intense synesthetic experiences (projector synesthetes). These results support the CCT model of synesthesia, implicate early perceptual mechanisms as driving factors in the elicitation of synesthetic hues, and further highlight the relationship between conceptual and perceptual factors in this phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Size distribution of dust grains: A problem of self-similarity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henning, TH.; Dorschner, J.; Guertler, J.

1989-01-01

Distribution functions describing the results of natural processes frequently show the shape of power laws. It is an open question whether this behavior is a result simply coming about by the chosen mathematical representation of the observational data or reflects a deep-seated principle of nature. The authors suppose the latter being the case. Using a dust model consisting of silicate and graphite grains Mathis et al. (1977) showed that the interstellar extinction curve can be represented by taking a grain radii distribution of power law type n(a) varies as a(exp -p) with 3.3 less than or equal to p less than or equal to 3.6 (example 1) as a basis. A different approach to understanding power laws like that in example 1 becomes possible by the theory of self-similar processes (scale invariance). The beta model of turbulence (Frisch et al., 1978) leads in an elementary way to the concept of the self-similarity dimension D, a special case of Mandelbrot's (1977) fractal dimension. In the frame of this beta model, it is supposed that on each stage of a cascade the system decays to N clumps and that only the portion beta N remains active further on. An important feature of this model is that the active eddies become less and less space-filling. In the following, the authors assume that grain-grain collisions are such a scale-invarient process and that the remaining grains are the inactive (frozen) clumps of the cascade. In this way, a size distribution n(a) da varies as a(exp -(D+1))da (example 2) results. It seems to be highly probable that the power law character of the size distribution of interstellar dust grains is the result of a self-similarity process. We can, however, not exclude that the process leading to the interstellar grain size distribution is not fragmentation at all

Consolidation of Similarity Knowledge via Pythagorean Theorem: A Turkish Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Güler, Hatice Kübra; Arslan, Çigdem

2017-01-01

Understanding how students learn is important for both researchers and teachers. In terms of mathematics, constructing a new mathematical structure depends on conceptual understanding and connection with previous construct and they needs to be consolidated. A construct can be consolidated when the construct is recognized and used in the further…

Contrasting ecosystem-effects of morphologically similar copepods.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Blake Matthews

Full Text Available Organisms alter the biotic and abiotic conditions of ecosystems. They can modulate the availability of resources to other species (ecosystem engineering and shape selection pressures on other organisms (niche construction. Very little is known about how the engineering effects of organisms vary among and within species, and, as a result, the ecosystem consequences of species diversification and phenotypic evolution are poorly understood. Here, using a common gardening experiment, we test whether morphologically similar species and populations of Diaptomidae copepods (Leptodiaptomus ashlandi, Hesperodiaptomus franciscanus, Skistodiaptomus oregonensis have similar or different effects on the structure and function of freshwater ecosystems. We found that copepod species had contrasting effects on algal biomass, ammonium concentrations, and sedimentation rates, and that copepod populations had contrasting effects on prokaryote abundance, sedimentation rates, and gross primary productivity. The average size of ecosystem-effect contrasts between species was similar to those between populations, and was comparable to those between fish species and populations measured in previous common gardening experiments. Our results suggest that subtle morphological variation among and within species can cause multifarious and divergent ecosystem-effects. We conclude that using morphological trait variation to assess the functional similarity of organisms may underestimate the importance of species and population diversity for ecosystem functioning.

Towards novel organic high-Tc superconductors: Data mining using density of states similarity search

Science.gov (United States)

Geilhufe, R. Matthias; Borysov, Stanislav S.; Kalpakchi, Dmytro; Balatsky, Alexander V.

2018-02-01

Identifying novel functional materials with desired key properties is an important part of bridging the gap between fundamental research and technological advancement. In this context, high-throughput calculations combined with data-mining techniques highly accelerated this process in different areas of research during the past years. The strength of a data-driven approach for materials prediction lies in narrowing down the search space of thousands of materials to a subset of prospective candidates. Recently, the open-access organic materials database OMDB was released providing electronic structure data for thousands of previously synthesized three-dimensional organic crystals. Based on the OMDB, we report about the implementation of a novel density of states similarity search tool which is capable of retrieving materials with similar density of states to a reference material. The tool is based on the approximate nearest neighbor algorithm as implemented in the ANNOY library and can be applied via the OMDB web interface. The approach presented here is wide ranging and can be applied to various problems where the density of states is responsible for certain key properties of a material. As the first application, we report about materials exhibiting electronic structure similarities to the aromatic hydrocarbon p-terphenyl which was recently discussed as a potential organic high-temperature superconductor exhibiting a transition temperature in the order of 120 K under strong potassium doping. Although the mechanism driving the remarkable transition temperature remains under debate, we argue that the density of states, reflecting the electronic structure of a material, might serve as a crucial ingredient for the observed high Tc. To provide candidates which might exhibit comparable properties, we present 15 purely organic materials with similar features to p-terphenyl within the electronic structure, which also tend to have structural similarities with p

New Similarity Functions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yazdani, Hossein; Ortiz-Arroyo, Daniel; Kwasnicka, Halina

2016-01-01

spaces, in addition to their similarity in the vector space. Prioritized Weighted Feature Distance (PWFD) works similarly as WFD, but provides the ability to give priorities to desirable features. The accuracy of the proposed functions are compared with other similarity functions on several data sets....... Our results show that the proposed functions work better than other methods proposed in the literature....

Child's understanding of television programmes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martina Peštaj

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In the last decade, we have witnessed an unimaginable progress of the electronic media. The television takes the first place by its availability, importance and popularity, both with adults and with children. It has become the focal point of family interaction and is progressively taking on a key role in the process of children's socialization. Various research has proven that children begin watching television as babies and that toddlers are already accustomed and constant viewers. During their development, they become increasingly competent to understand and to use the television media, while the differences in the perception of television contents are mainly conditioned by the period of early childhood. The process of preschool child's understanding of media information goes from concrete to abstract and on two levels at the same time: understanding of formal features and understanding of content. Both levels have important role in child's understanding of the world, what could be observed in forming of gender stereotypes, where, as researches show, the television has a special influence.

Impacts of Sugar Import Policy on Sugar Production in Indonesia

OpenAIRE

Suryantoro, Agustinus; Susilo, Albertus Magnus; Supriyono, Supriyono

2013-01-01

Production of sugar unful lled consumption of Indonesia society. The lack of consumption and productionhave ful lled by import. Assumption national consumption 2,7 million ton, Indonesia will import sugar in 2013predicted about 300.000 ton (Tempo.co, August, 21, 2012).The aims in general of this research are to understand the impact of sugar import policy on sugar production.Especially (1) to understand the factors that in uence sugar import price, (2) to understand impact of sugarimport pric...

Understanding and treating kleptomania: new models and new treatments.

Science.gov (United States)

Grant, Jon E

2006-01-01

Kleptomania, characterized by repetitive, uncontrollable stealing of items not needed for personal use, is a disabling disorder that often goes unrecognized in clinical practice. Although originally conceptualized as an obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder, emerging evidence (clinical characteristics, familial transmission, and treatment response) suggests that kleptomania may have important similarities to both addictive and mood disorders. In particular, kleptomania frequently co-occurs with substance use disorders, and it is common for individuals with kleptomania to have first-degree relatives who suffer from a substance use disorder. Additionally, there is some suggestion that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the treatment of choice for obsessive compulsive disorder, may lack efficacy for kleptomania. Instead, other medications (lithium, anti-epileptics, and opioid antagonists) have shown early promise in treating kleptomania. Evidence suggests that there may be subtypes of kleptomania that are more like OCD, whereas others have more similarities to addictive and mood disorders. Subtyping of individuals with kleptomania may be a useful way to better understand this behavior and decide on effective treatment interventions.

Western classical music development: a statistical analysis of composers similarity, differentiation and evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Georges, Patrick

2017-01-01

This paper proposes a statistical analysis that captures similarities and differences between classical music composers with the eventual aim to understand why particular composers 'sound' different even if their 'lineages' (influences network) are similar or why they 'sound' alike if their 'lineages' are different. In order to do this we use statistical methods and measures of association or similarity (based on presence/absence of traits such as specific 'ecological' characteristics and personal musical influences) that have been developed in biosystematics, scientometrics, and bibliographic coupling. This paper also represents a first step towards a more ambitious goal of developing an evolutionary model of Western classical music.

Metabolomics coupled with similarity analysis advances the elucidation of the cold/hot properties of traditional Chinese medicines.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Yan; Zhang, Zheng-Zheng; Wei, Yu-Hai; Xue-Mei, Qin; Li, Zhen-Yu

2017-08-01

It recently becomes an important and urgent mission for modern scientific research to identify and explain the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which has been utilized in China for more than four millennia. Since few works have been contributed to understanding the TCM theory, the mechanism of actions of drugs with cold/hot properties remains unclear. In the present study, six kinds of typical herbs with cold or hot properties were orally administered into mice, and serum and liver samples were analyzed using an untargeted nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) based metabolomics approach coupled with similarity analysis. This approach was performed to identify and quantify changes in metabolic pathways to elucidate drug actions on the treated mice. Our results showed that those drugs with same property exerted similar effects on the metabolic alterations in mouse serum and liver samples, while drugs with different property showed different effects. The effects of herbal medicines with cold/hot properties were exerted by regulating the pathways linked to glycometabolism, lipid metabolism, amino acids metabolism and other metabolic pathways. The results elucidated the differences and similarities of drugs with cold/hot properties, providing useful information on the explanation of medicinal properties of these TCMs. Copyright © 2017 China Pharmaceutical University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Image quality assessment based on inter-patch and intra-patch similarity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fei Zhou

Full Text Available In this paper, we propose a full-reference (FR image quality assessment (IQA scheme, which evaluates image fidelity from two aspects: the inter-patch similarity and the intra-patch similarity. The scheme is performed in a patch-wise fashion so that a quality map can be obtained. On one hand, we investigate the disparity between one image patch and its adjacent ones. This disparity is visually described by an inter-patch feature, where the hybrid effect of luminance masking and contrast masking is taken into account. The inter-patch similarity is further measured by modifying the normalized correlation coefficient (NCC. On the other hand, we also attach importance to the impact of image contents within one patch on the IQA problem. For the intra-patch feature, we consider image curvature as an important complement of image gradient. According to local image contents, the intra-patch similarity is measured by adaptively comparing image curvature and gradient. Besides, a nonlinear integration of the inter-patch and intra-patch similarity is presented to obtain an overall score of image quality. The experiments conducted on six publicly available image databases show that our scheme achieves better performance in comparison with several state-of-the-art schemes.

Similarity, trust in institutions, affect, and populism

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Scholderer, Joachim; Finucane, Melissa L.

-based evaluations are fundamental to human information processing, they can contribute significantly to other judgments (such as the risk, cost-effectiveness, trustworthiness) of the same stimulus object. Although deliberation and analysis are certainly important in some decision-making circumstances, reliance...... on affect is a quicker, easier, and a more efficient way of navigating in a complex and uncertain world. Hence, many theorists give affect a direct and primary role in motivating behavior. Taken together, the results provide uncannily strong support for the value-similarity hypothesis, strengthening...... types of information about gene technology. The materials were attributed to different institutions. The results indicated that participants' trust in an institution was a function of the similarity between the position advocated in the materials and participants' own attitudes towards gene technology...

Osteoporosis pharmacotherapy following bone densitometry: importance of patient beliefs and understanding of DXA results

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brask-Lindemann, Dorthe; Cadarette, S M; Eskildsen, P

2011-01-01

. Quadratic weighted kappa was used to estimate agreement between self-report and actual DXA results. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate predictors of understanding of diagnosis, and correlates of treatment initiation and persistence. Results A total of 717 patients responded (72...

Cross-cultural comparison of need importance and need satisfaction during adolescence: Turkey and the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Hortaçsu, N

1997-09-01

Turkish and U.S. adolescents' views concerning the importance of different needs and instrumentality of relationships with mothers, fathers, siblings, and same-sex friends for need satisfaction were examined and compared. Questionnaires covered needs related to crucial issues of adolescence, namely, relatedness and autonomy/individuation. Participants were 12- to 17-year-old boys and girls from intact families. Cross-cultural differences in ascribed importance of needs related to some aspects of relatedness and autonomy/individuation emerged. Cross-cultural similarities in ascribed importance of needs related to feelings of basic acceptance and need for self-understanding/development also emerged. Turkish adolescents perceived mothers as more instrumental for need satisfaction than did U.S. adolescents. Gender differences in importance ascribed to different needs also emerged. Cross-cultural differences were consistent with differences in predominant values and model family dynamics of the respective countries.

How Similar Are Forest Disturbance Maps Derived from Different Landsat Time Series Algorithms?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Warren B. Cohen

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Disturbance is a critical ecological process in forested systems, and disturbance maps are important for understanding forest dynamics. Landsat data are a key remote sensing dataset for monitoring forest disturbance and there recently has been major growth in the development of disturbance mapping algorithms. Many of these algorithms take advantage of the high temporal data volume to mine subtle signals in Landsat time series, but as those signals become subtler, they are more likely to be mixed with noise in Landsat data. This study examines the similarity among seven different algorithms in their ability to map the full range of magnitudes of forest disturbance over six different Landsat scenes distributed across the conterminous US. The maps agreed very well in terms of the amount of undisturbed forest over time; however, for the ~30% of forest mapped as disturbed in a given year by at least one algorithm, there was little agreement about which pixels were affected. Algorithms that targeted higher-magnitude disturbances exhibited higher omission errors but lower commission errors than those targeting a broader range of disturbance magnitudes. These results suggest that a user of any given forest disturbance map should understand the map’s strengths and weaknesses (in terms of omission and commission error rates, with respect to the disturbance targets of interest.

Importance of Grid Center Arrangement

Science.gov (United States)

Pasaogullari, O.; Usul, N.

2012-12-01

In Digital Elevation Modeling, grid size is accepted to be the most important parameter. Despite the point density and/or scale of the source data, it is freely decided by the user. Most of the time, arrangement of the grid centers are ignored, even most GIS packages omit the choice of grid center coordinate selection. In our study; importance of the arrangement of grid centers is investigated. Using the analogy between "Raster Grid DEM" and "Bitmap Image", importance of placement of grid centers in DEMs are measured. The study has been conducted on four different grid DEMs obtained from a half ellipsoid. These grid DEMs are obtained in such a way that they are half grid size apart from each other. Resulting grid DEMs are investigated through similarity measures. Image processing scientists use different measures to investigate the dis/similarity between the images and the amount of different information they carry. Grid DEMs are projected to a finer grid in order to co-center. Similarity measures are then applied to each grid DEM pairs. These similarity measures are adapted to DEM with band reduction and real number operation. One of the measures gives function graph and the others give measure matrices. Application of similarity measures to six grid DEM pairs shows interesting results. These four different grid DEMs are created with the same method for the same area, surprisingly; thirteen out of 14 measures state that, the half grid size apart grid DEMs are different from each other. The results indicated that although grid DEMs carry mutual information, they have also additional individual information. In other words, half grid size apart constructed grid DEMs have non-redundant information.; Joint Probability Distributions Function Graphs

Understanding leader representations: Beyond implicit leadership theory

OpenAIRE

Knee, Robert Everett

2006-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to establish evidence for the suggested integration of the theories of connectionism and leadership. Recent theoretical writings in the field of leadership have suggested that the dynamic representations generated by the connectionist perspective is an appropriate approach to understanding how we perceive leaders. Similarly, implicit leadership theory (ILT) explains that our cognitive understandings of leaders are based on a cognitive structure that we u...

Genome-wide analysis of regions similar to promoters of histone genes

KAUST Repository

Chowdhary, Rajesh

2010-05-28

Background: The purpose of this study is to: i) develop a computational model of promoters of human histone-encoding genes (shortly histone genes), an important class of genes that participate in various critical cellular processes, ii) use the model so developed to identify regions across the human genome that have similar structure as promoters of histone genes; such regions could represent potential genomic regulatory regions, e.g. promoters, of genes that may be coregulated with histone genes, and iii/ identify in this way genes that have high likelihood of being coregulated with the histone genes.Results: We successfully developed a histone promoter model using a comprehensive collection of histone genes. Based on leave-one-out cross-validation test, the model produced good prediction accuracy (94.1% sensitivity, 92.6% specificity, and 92.8% positive predictive value). We used this model to predict across the genome a number of genes that shared similar promoter structures with the histone gene promoters. We thus hypothesize that these predicted genes could be coregulated with histone genes. This hypothesis matches well with the available gene expression, gene ontology, and pathways data. Jointly with promoters of the above-mentioned genes, we found a large number of intergenic regions with similar structure as histone promoters.Conclusions: This study represents one of the most comprehensive computational analyses conducted thus far on a genome-wide scale of promoters of human histone genes. Our analysis suggests a number of other human genes that share a high similarity of promoter structure with the histone genes and thus are highly likely to be coregulated, and consequently coexpressed, with the histone genes. We also found that there are a large number of intergenic regions across the genome with their structures similar to promoters of histone genes. These regions may be promoters of yet unidentified genes, or may represent remote control regions that

Different measures of structural similarity tap different aspects of visual object processing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gerlach, Christian

2017-01-01

The structural similarity of objects has been an important variable in explaining why some objects are easier to categorize at a superordinate level than to individuate, and also why some patients with brain injury have more difficulties in recognizing natural (structurally similar) objects than...... artifacts (structurally distinct objects). In spite of its merits as an explanatory variable, structural similarity is not a unitary construct, and it has been operationalized in different ways. Furthermore, even though measures of structural similarity have been successful in explaining task and category-effects...

Buying Imported Products Online : A quantitative study about Chinese Online consumer behavior towards imported products

OpenAIRE

Chen, Qianqian; Wang, Yuren

2015-01-01

With the fast growing Chinese online marketplace and the increasing popularity of shopping imported products online in China, more and more practitioners and researchers are interested in understanding the cues that Chinese consumers use to evaluate imported products consumption online. Our quantitative study aims to identify what factors affect the behavior of Chinese online consumers towards imported products and the relationships between the identified factors and purchase intention, and t...

Protein structure similarity from principle component correlation analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chou James

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Owing to rapid expansion of protein structure databases in recent years, methods of structure comparison are becoming increasingly effective and important in revealing novel information on functional properties of proteins and their roles in the grand scheme of evolutionary biology. Currently, the structural similarity between two proteins is measured by the root-mean-square-deviation (RMSD in their best-superimposed atomic coordinates. RMSD is the golden rule of measuring structural similarity when the structures are nearly identical; it, however, fails to detect the higher order topological similarities in proteins evolved into different shapes. We propose new algorithms for extracting geometrical invariants of proteins that can be effectively used to identify homologous protein structures or topologies in order to quantify both close and remote structural similarities. Results We measure structural similarity between proteins by correlating the principle components of their secondary structure interaction matrix. In our approach, the Principle Component Correlation (PCC analysis, a symmetric interaction matrix for a protein structure is constructed with relationship parameters between secondary elements that can take the form of distance, orientation, or other relevant structural invariants. When using a distance-based construction in the presence or absence of encoded N to C terminal sense, there are strong correlations between the principle components of interaction matrices of structurally or topologically similar proteins. Conclusion The PCC method is extensively tested for protein structures that belong to the same topological class but are significantly different by RMSD measure. The PCC analysis can also differentiate proteins having similar shapes but different topological arrangements. Additionally, we demonstrate that when using two independently defined interaction matrices, comparison of their maximum

Revealing conceptual understanding of international business

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sue Ashley; Dr. Harmen Schaap; Prof.Dr. Elly de Bruijn

2017-01-01

This study aims to identify an adequate approach for revealing conceptual understanding in higher professional education. Revealing students’ conceptual understanding is an important step towards developing effective curricula, assessment and aligned teaching strategies to enhance conceptual

Analysis of HIV-1 intersubtype recombination breakpoints suggests region with high pairing probability may be a more fundamental factor than sequence similarity affecting HIV-1 recombination.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Lei; Li, Lin; Gui, Tao; Liu, Siyang; Li, Hanping; Han, Jingwan; Guo, Wei; Liu, Yongjian; Li, Jingyun

2016-09-21

With increasing data on HIV-1, a more relevant molecular model describing mechanism details of HIV-1 genetic recombination usually requires upgrades. Currently an incomplete structural understanding of the copy choice mechanism along with several other issues in the field that lack elucidation led us to perform an analysis of the correlation between breakpoint distributions and (1) the probability of base pairing, and (2) intersubtype genetic similarity to further explore structural mechanisms. Near full length sequences of URFs from Asia, Europe, and Africa (one sequence/patient), and representative sequences of worldwide CRFs were retrieved from the Los Alamos HIV database. Their recombination patterns were analyzed by jpHMM in detail. Then the relationships between breakpoint distributions and (1) the probability of base pairing, and (2) intersubtype genetic similarities were investigated. Pearson correlation test showed that all URF groups and the CRF group exhibit the same breakpoint distribution pattern. Additionally, the Wilcoxon two-sample test indicated a significant and inexplicable limitation of recombination in regions with high pairing probability. These regions have been found to be strongly conserved across distinct biological states (i.e., strong intersubtype similarity), and genetic similarity has been determined to be a very important factor promoting recombination. Thus, the results revealed an unexpected disagreement between intersubtype similarity and breakpoint distribution, which were further confirmed by genetic similarity analysis. Our analysis reveals a critical conflict between results from natural HIV-1 isolates and those from HIV-1-based assay vectors in which genetic similarity has been shown to be a very critical factor promoting recombination. These results indicate the region with high-pairing probabilities may be a more fundamental factor affecting HIV-1 recombination than sequence similarity in natural HIV-1 infections. Our

Affect and well-being similarity among older Indian spouses.

Science.gov (United States)

Shakya, Holly B

2015-01-01

Previous work suggests that husbands and wives are likely to share affective states so that depression or happiness in one spouse is predictive of depression or happiness in the other. Studies that have examined spousal affect similarity, however, have been concentrated in the Western world where the meaning of marriage may be different than it is in other cultural contexts. Marriage in India, unlike that in the United States, is focused on the extended family so that love and intimacy between spouses are downplayed. This study examined affect and well-being similarity between 603 older married couples in India using pilot data from the Longitudinal Aging Study of India. We ran linear regression models to assess the relationship between the well-being states of husbands and wives using dyadic observations for four different measures: depressive symptoms, dissatisfaction with daily life, social isolation, and overall life satisfaction. Across all four measures, the well-being scores of one spouse were positively and significantly associated with the well-being scores of the other. These associations did not vary by marital satisfaction, but were slightly stronger for respondents reporting poor health. Our increased understanding of social connectedness has prompted a shift from the consideration of single individuals to a broader understanding of individuals in the context of their social environments. The results of this study suggest that interventions designed to foster well-being among older adults in India might benefit from a focus on couples as a unit rather than individuals.

Correlates of Couples’ Perceived Similarity at the Initiation Stage and Currently

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Susan Sprecher

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Although prior research (Montoya, Horton, & Kirchner, 2008 has indicated that perceived similarity is more important than actual similarity as a predictor of satisfaction and attraction, there is a lack of research on factors associated with couples’ perceptions of similarity in their relationship. In the present study, a sample of couples (both partners provided ratings of the degree to which they perceived similarity in six areas (background characteristics, attitudes and beliefs, leisure pursuits and interests, communication style, personality, and physical attributes for two stages in their relationship: currently and at the initiation stage (viewed retrospectively. The couples perceived greater similarity for the current stage of their relationship than for the beginning stage of their relationship. Factors found to be associated with perceived similarity included positive social network reactions, overlap in social networks (predictor of current perceived similarity only, perceived compatibility, and satisfaction and commitment (examined only for current perceived similarity. Of the various types of perceived similarity considered in this study, similarity in attitudes and beliefs was most consistently associated with the various predictor variables. Implications of these results for enhancing couple relationships are discussed.

Self-similar pattern formation and continuous mechanics of self-similar systems

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A. V. Dyskin

2007-01-01

Full Text Available In many cases, the critical state of systems that reached the threshold is characterised by self-similar pattern formation. We produce an example of pattern formation of this kind – formation of self-similar distribution of interacting fractures. Their formation starts with the crack growth due to the action of stress fluctuations. It is shown that even when the fluctuations have zero average the cracks generated by them could grow far beyond the scale of stress fluctuations. Further development of the fracture system is controlled by crack interaction leading to the emergence of self-similar crack distributions. As a result, the medium with fractures becomes discontinuous at any scale. We develop a continuum fractal mechanics to model its physical behaviour. We introduce a continuous sequence of continua of increasing scales covering this range of scales. The continuum of each scale is specified by the representative averaging volume elements of the corresponding size. These elements determine the resolution of the continuum. Each continuum hides the cracks of scales smaller than the volume element size while larger fractures are modelled explicitly. Using the developed formalism we investigate the stability of self-similar crack distributions with respect to crack growth and show that while the self-similar distribution of isotropically oriented cracks is stable, the distribution of parallel cracks is not. For the isotropically oriented cracks scaling of permeability is determined. For permeable materials (rocks with self-similar crack distributions permeability scales as cube of crack radius. This property could be used for detecting this specific mechanism of formation of self-similar crack distributions.

Understanding specificity in metabolic pathways-Structural biology of human nucleotide metabolism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Welin, Martin; Nordlund, Paer

2010-01-01

Interactions are the foundation of life at the molecular level. In the plethora of activities in the cell, the evolution of enzyme specificity requires the balancing of appropriate substrate affinity with a negative selection, in order to minimize interactions with other potential substrates in the cell. To understand the structural basis for enzyme specificity, the comparison of structural and biochemical data between enzymes within pathways using similar substrates and effectors is valuable. Nucleotide metabolism is one of the largest metabolic pathways in the human cell and is of outstanding therapeutic importance since it activates and catabolises nucleoside based anti-proliferative drugs and serves as a direct target for anti-proliferative drugs. In recent years the structural coverage of the enzymes involved in human nucleotide metabolism has been dramatically improved and is approaching completion. An important factor has been the contribution from the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) at Karolinska Institutet, which recently has solved 33 novel structures of enzymes and enzyme domains in human nucleotide metabolism pathways and homologs thereof. In this review we will discuss some of the principles for substrate specificity of enzymes in human nucleotide metabolism illustrated by a selected set of enzyme families where a detailed understanding of the structural determinants for specificity is now emerging.

Similarity in Middle School Mathematics: At the Crossroads of Geometry and Number

Science.gov (United States)

Cox, Dana C.

2013-01-01

The mathematical idea of similarity is typically taught to students across the middle school years between ages 11 and 14. In this study, students' understanding of presimilarity is examined based on a set of clinical interviews of 21 students aged 12-13 years. Students were asked to scale a series of geometric figures and were found to use a…

Variability in Women Faculty’s Preferences Regarding Mentor Similarity: A Multi-Institution Study in Academic Medicine

Science.gov (United States)

Carapinha, René; Ortiz-Walters, Rowena; McCracken, Caitlin M.; Hill, Emorcia V.; Reede, Joan Y.

2016-01-01

Purpose To investigate which mentor similarity characteristics women faculty in academic medicine rate most important and to determine whether the importance of similarity differs among women faculty based on current and prior mentoring, demographic and personal factors, and career factors. Method Cross-sectional survey data from 3,100 women faculty at 13 purposively sampled U.S. medical schools were collected in 2012. The preferences of participants regarding the importance of mentor similarity in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, personal and career interests, and department and institution were studied. Analysis entailed chi square tests and multivariable ordered logistic models. Results Overall, respondents ranked having a mentor in the same department and institution as most important. Same department and institution were less important for those without a current mentor and for senior faculty, and were more important for Asian faculty. Same career and personal interests were less important for older faculty and more important for those with a doctorate only. Same gender was more important for Black faculty, faculty at the rank of instructor, and those without current mentoring. Overall, same race/ethnicity was rated least important; however, it was more important for racial/ethnic minorities, foreign-born faculty, and those who had never had a mentor. Conclusions Mentor preferences, as indicated by level of importance assigned to types of mentor similarity, varied among women faculty. To advance effective mentoring, characterized by high degree of mentor-mentee fit, the authors provide recommendations on matching strategies to be used in academic medicine when considering the diverse mentor preferences of women faculty. PMID:27332871

Enhancing Media Personalization by Extracting Similarity Knowledge from Metadata

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Butkus, Andrius

be seen as a cognitive foundation for modeling concepts. Conceptual Spaces is applied in this thesis to analyze media in terms of its dimensions and knowledge domains, which in return defines properties and concepts. One of the most important domains in terms of describing media is the emotional one...... only “more of the same” type of content which does not necessarily lead to the meaningful personalization. Another way to approach similarity is to find a similar underlying meaning in the content. Aspects of meaning in media can be represented using Gardenfors Conceptual Spaces theory, which can......) using Latent Semantic Analysis (one of the unsupervised machine learning techniques). It presents three separate cases to illustrate the similarity knowledge extraction from the metadata, where the emotional components in each case represents different abstraction levels – genres, synopsis and lyrics...

Do People Know What They Want: A Similar or Complementary Partner?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pieternel Dijkstra

2008-10-01

Full Text Available The present study examined the extent to which individuals seek partners with similar, as opposed to complementary, personality characteristics. Results showed that whereas individuals desired a partner who resembles them in terms of personality, when asked about their preferences in general, most individuals indicated that they desired a complementary partner instead of a similar one. In addition to a similar partner with regard to personality, women also desired a more conscientious, less neurotic and more extraverted partner than men. These results are discussed with reference to the importance of matched personalities in marital success.

Motivation and its importance in learning English

OpenAIRE

Нетесова, Мария Витальевна

2015-01-01

The principal objective of this paper is to pay our attention to such a significant problem as motivation in the process of learning a foreign language. The paper is devoted to the very important problem concerning educational process. For most purposes in today, motivation has different reasons why we act in a certain way. We may indeed be motivated by influences as basic as pain and pleasure. The key to understanding motivation is, to some, understanding why it is important to an individual...

Knowledge and understanding of health insurance: challenges and remedies.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, Andrew J; Hanoch, Yaniv

2017-07-13

As coverage is expanded in health systems that rely on consumers to choose health insurance plans that best meet their needs, interest in whether consumers possess sufficient understanding of health insurance to make good coverage decisions is growing. The recent IJHPR article by Green and colleagues-examining understanding of supplementary health insurance (SHI) among Israeli consumers-provides an important and timely answer to the above question. Indeed, their study addresses similar problems to the ones identified in the US health care market, with two notable findings. First, they show that overall-regardless of demographic variables-there are low levels of knowledge about SHI, which the literature has come to refer to more broadly as "health insurance literacy." Second, they find a significant disparity in health insurance literacy between different SES groups, where Jews were significantly more knowledgeable about SHI compared to their Arab counterparts.The authors' findings are consistent with a growing body of literature from the U.S. and elsewhere, including our own, presenting evidence that consumers struggle with understanding and using health insurance. Studies in the U.S. have also found that difficulties are generally more acute for populations considered the most vulnerable and consequently most in need of adequate and affordable health insurance coverage.The authors' findings call attention to the need to tailor communication strategies aimed at mitigating health insurance literacy and, ultimately, access and outcomes disparities among vulnerable populations in Israel and elsewhere. It also raises the importance of creating insurance choice environments in health systems relying on consumers to make coverage decisions that facilitate the decision process by using "choice architecture" to, among other things, simplify plan information and highlight meaningful differences between coverage options.

Review Essay: Understanding in Professional Interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rainer Schützeichel

2012-07-01

Full Text Available "Professions" are work collaborations in which representatives of certain vocations address the life problems of "laypersons." In such relationships, adequate communication between representatives of the profession and laypersons is crucial in addressing their individual problems. Accordingly, "understanding," as well as interactional documentation of this understanding, is of considerable importance. The authors of the present volume, "Understanding in Professional Spheres of Activity,"  address the documentation of this understanding in certain professional spheres. They examine the requirements for the documentation of such understanding and the forms of documentation used in the fields of doctor-patient communication, counseling communication, and organizational collaboration on a movie set. Conversation analytic as well as ethnographically complemented studies draw further attention to an examination of the interactional level in its socio-structural context, and to that end the study employs a combination of conversational linguistics and sociological research. This contribution is therefore important not only in terms of linguistics but also sociologically. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1203142

Thai Language Sentence Similarity Computation Based on Syntactic Structure and Semantic Vector

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongbin; Feng, Yinhan; Cheng, Liang

2018-03-01

Sentence similarity computation plays an increasingly important role in text mining, Web page retrieval, machine translation, speech recognition and question answering systems. Thai language as a kind of resources scarce language, it is not like Chinese language with HowNet and CiLin resources. So the Thai sentence similarity research faces some challenges. In order to solve this problem of the Thai language sentence similarity computation. This paper proposes a novel method to compute the similarity of Thai language sentence based on syntactic structure and semantic vector. This method firstly uses the Part-of-Speech (POS) dependency to calculate two sentences syntactic structure similarity, and then through the word vector to calculate two sentences semantic similarity. Finally, we combine the two methods to calculate two Thai language sentences similarity. The proposed method not only considers semantic, but also considers the sentence syntactic structure. The experiment result shows that this method in Thai language sentence similarity computation is feasible.

A behavioral similarity measure between labeled Petri nets based on principal transition sequences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, J.; He, T.; Wen, L.; Wu, N.; Hofstede, ter A.H.M.; Su, J.; Meersman, R.; Dillon, T.S.; Herrero, P.

2010-01-01

Being able to determine the degree of similarity between process models is important for management, reuse, and analysis of business process models. In this paper we propose a novel method to determine the degree of similarity between process models, which exploits their semantics. Our approach is

Self-similar factor approximants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gluzman, S.; Yukalov, V.I.; Sornette, D.

2003-01-01

The problem of reconstructing functions from their asymptotic expansions in powers of a small variable is addressed by deriving an improved type of approximants. The derivation is based on the self-similar approximation theory, which presents the passage from one approximant to another as the motion realized by a dynamical system with the property of group self-similarity. The derived approximants, because of their form, are called self-similar factor approximants. These complement the obtained earlier self-similar exponential approximants and self-similar root approximants. The specific feature of self-similar factor approximants is that their control functions, providing convergence of the computational algorithm, are completely defined from the accuracy-through-order conditions. These approximants contain the Pade approximants as a particular case, and in some limit they can be reduced to the self-similar exponential approximants previously introduced by two of us. It is proved that the self-similar factor approximants are able to reproduce exactly a wide class of functions, which include a variety of nonalgebraic functions. For other functions, not pertaining to this exactly reproducible class, the factor approximants provide very accurate approximations, whose accuracy surpasses significantly that of the most accurate Pade approximants. This is illustrated by a number of examples showing the generality and accuracy of the factor approximants even when conventional techniques meet serious difficulties

Understanding the crystallization mechanism of delafossite CuGaO2 for controlled hydrothermal synthesis of nanoparticles and nanoplates.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Mingzhe; Draskovic, Thomas I; Wu, Yiying

2014-06-02

The delafossite CuGaO2 is an important p-type transparent conducting oxide for both fundamental science and industrial applications. An emerging application is for p-type dye-sensitized solar cells. Obtaining delafossite CuGaO2 nanoparticles is challenging but desirable for efficient dye loading. In this work, the phase formation and crystal growth mechanism of delafossite CuGaO2 under low-temperature (mechanism to explain the formation of large CuGaO2 nanoplates. Importantly, by suppressing this OA process, delafossite CuGaO2 nanoparticles that are 20 nm in size were successfully synthesized for the first time. Moreover, considering the structural and chemical similarities between the Cu-based delafossite series compounds, the understanding of the hydrothermal chemistry and crystallization mechanism of CuGaO2 should also benefit syntheses of other similar delafossites such as CuAlO2 and CuScO2.

Extending the construct of psychopathy to youth: implications for understanding, diagnosing, and treating antisocial children and adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Frick, Paul J

2009-12-01

This paper reviews several attempts to extend the construct of psychopathy to children and adolescents. The research suggests that the presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits may be particularly important. Specifically, the presence of these traits designates a clinically important subgroup of youth with childhood-onset conduct problems who show a particularly severe, aggressive, and stable pattern of antisocial behaviour. Also, children with CU traits show numerous emotional, cognitive, and personality features that are distinct from other antisocial youth that are similar to features found in adults with psychopathy. The research on CU traits has important implications for understanding the different causal pathways through which children develop severe antisocial and aggressive behaviour, as well as implications for diagnosing and intervening with antisocial youth.

Nuclear markers reveal that inter-lake cichlids' similar morphologies do not reflect similar genealogy.

Science.gov (United States)

Kassam, Daud; Seki, Shingo; Horic, Michio; Yamaoka, Kosaku

2006-08-01

The apparent inter-lake morphological similarity among East African Great Lakes' cichlid species/genera has left evolutionary biologists asking whether such similarity is due to sharing of common ancestor or mere convergent evolution. In order to answer such question, we first used Geometric Morphometrics, GM, to quantify morphological similarity and then subsequently used Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism, AFLP, to determine if similar morphologies imply shared ancestry or convergent evolution. GM revealed that not all presumed morphological similar pairs were indeed similar, and the dendrogram generated from AFLP data indicated distinct clusters corresponding to each lake and not inter-lake morphological similar pairs. Such results imply that the morphological similarity is due to convergent evolution and not shared ancestry. The congruency of GM and AFLP generated dendrograms imply that GM is capable of picking up phylogenetic signal, and thus GM can be potential tool in phylogenetic systematics.

Trait similarity patterns within grass and grasshopper communities : Multitrophic community assembly at work

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Plas, F.; Anderson, T. M.; Olff, H.

Trait-based community assembly theory suggests that trait variation among co-occurring species is shaped by two main processes: abiotic filtering, important in stressful environments and promoting similarity, and competition, more important in productive environments and promoting dissimilarity.

Determination of subjective similarity for pairs of masses and pairs of clustered microcalcifications on mammograms: Comparison of similarity ranking scores and absolute similarity ratings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Muramatsu, Chisako; Li Qiang; Schmidt, Robert A.; Shiraishi, Junji; Suzuki, Kenji; Newstead, Gillian M.; Doi, Kunio

2007-01-01

The presentation of images that are similar to that of an unknown lesion seen on a mammogram may be helpful for radiologists to correctly diagnose that lesion. For similar images to be useful, they must be quite similar from the radiologists' point of view. We have been trying to quantify the radiologists' impression of similarity for pairs of lesions and to establish a ''gold standard'' for development and evaluation of a computerized scheme for selecting such similar images. However, it is considered difficult to reliably and accurately determine similarity ratings, because they are subjective. In this study, we compared the subjective similarities obtained by two different methods, an absolute rating method and a 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) method, to demonstrate that reliable similarity ratings can be determined by the responses of a group of radiologists. The absolute similarity ratings were previously obtained for pairs of masses and pairs of microcalcifications from five and nine radiologists, respectively. In this study, similarity ranking scores for eight pairs of masses and eight pairs of microcalcifications were determined by use of the 2AFC method. In the first session, the eight pairs of masses and eight pairs of microcalcifications were grouped and compared separately for determining the similarity ranking scores. In the second session, another similarity ranking score was determined by use of mixed pairs, i.e., by comparison of the similarity of a mass pair with that of a calcification pair. Four pairs of masses and four pairs of microcalcifications were grouped together to create two sets of eight pairs. The average absolute similarity ratings and the average similarity ranking scores showed very good correlations in the first study (Pearson's correlation coefficients: 0.94 and 0.98 for masses and microcalcifications, respectively). Moreover, in the second study, the correlations between the absolute ratings and the ranking scores were also

Beyond dark and bright: towards a more holistic understanding of inter-group networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Hejnova, Petra

2010-01-01

Networks are becoming a popular organizational form for structuring human activities. To date, scholars have addressed networks in a variety of fields, including sociology, economics, public administration, criminology, political science, and international security. However, little has been done so far to systematically examine the similarities, differences, and connections between network forms of organization across different academic disciplines. This has important implications for both theory and practice. The lack of attention paid to organizational similarities and differences prevents the exchange of knowledge developed across fields. In turn, policy-makers cannot take full advantage of existing research, and may miss opportunities to improve the work of some networks and combat that of others. To address this gap in the literature, this paper uses the combination of organizational environments and organizational goals to develop a new typology of inter-group networks, and thus improve our understanding of how human behaviour is coordinated through networks.

Different relationships between temporal phylogenetic turnover and phylogenetic similarity and in two forests were detected by a new null model.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Jian-Xiong; Zhang, Jian; Shen, Yong; Lian, Ju-yu; Cao, Hong-lin; Ye, Wan-hui; Wu, Lin-fang; Bin, Yue

2014-01-01

Ecologists have been monitoring community dynamics with the purpose of understanding the rates and causes of community change. However, there is a lack of monitoring of community dynamics from the perspective of phylogeny. We attempted to understand temporal phylogenetic turnover in a 50 ha tropical forest (Barro Colorado Island, BCI) and a 20 ha subtropical forest (Dinghushan in southern China, DHS). To obtain temporal phylogenetic turnover under random conditions, two null models were used. The first shuffled names of species that are widely used in community phylogenetic analyses. The second simulated demographic processes with careful consideration on the variation in dispersal ability among species and the variations in mortality both among species and among size classes. With the two models, we tested the relationships between temporal phylogenetic turnover and phylogenetic similarity at different spatial scales in the two forests. Results were more consistent with previous findings using the second null model suggesting that the second null model is more appropriate for our purposes. With the second null model, a significantly positive relationship was detected between phylogenetic turnover and phylogenetic similarity in BCI at a 10 m×10 m scale, potentially indicating phylogenetic density dependence. This relationship in DHS was significantly negative at three of five spatial scales. This could indicate abiotic filtering processes for community assembly. Using variation partitioning, we found phylogenetic similarity contributed to variation in temporal phylogenetic turnover in the DHS plot but not in BCI plot. The mechanisms for community assembly in BCI and DHS vary from phylogenetic perspective. Only the second null model detected this difference indicating the importance of choosing a proper null model.

Similarity Measure of Graphs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amine Labriji

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The topic of identifying the similarity of graphs was considered as highly recommended research field in the Web semantic, artificial intelligence, the shape recognition and information research. One of the fundamental problems of graph databases is finding similar graphs to a graph query. Existing approaches dealing with this problem are usually based on the nodes and arcs of the two graphs, regardless of parental semantic links. For instance, a common connection is not identified as being part of the similarity of two graphs in cases like two graphs without common concepts, the measure of similarity based on the union of two graphs, or the one based on the notion of maximum common sub-graph (SCM, or the distance of edition of graphs. This leads to an inadequate situation in the context of information research. To overcome this problem, we suggest a new measure of similarity between graphs, based on the similarity measure of Wu and Palmer. We have shown that this new measure satisfies the properties of a measure of similarities and we applied this new measure on examples. The results show that our measure provides a run time with a gain of time compared to existing approaches. In addition, we compared the relevance of the similarity values obtained, it appears that this new graphs measure is advantageous and  offers a contribution to solving the problem mentioned above.

Educational professionals' understanding of childhood traumatic brain injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Linden, Mark A; Braiden, Hannah-Jane; Miller, Sarah

2013-01-01

To determine the understanding of educational professionals around the topic of childhood brain injury and explore the factor structure of the Common Misconceptions about Traumatic Brain Injury Questionnaire (CM-TBI). Cross-sectional postal survey. The CM-TBI was posted to all educational establishments in one region of the UK. One representative from each school was asked to complete and return the questionnaire (n = 388). Differences were demonstrated between those participants who knew someone with a brain injury and those who did not, with a similar pattern being shown for those educators who had taught a child with brain injury. Participants who had taught a child with brain injury demonstrated greater knowledge in areas such as seatbelts/prevention, brain damage, brain injury sequelae, amnesia, recovery and rehabilitation. Principal components analysis suggested the existence of four factors and the discarding of half the original items of the questionnaire. In the first European study to explore this issue, it is highlighted that teachers are ill-prepared to cope with children who have sustained a brain injury. Given the importance of a supportive school environment in return to life following hospitalization, the lack of understanding demonstrated by teachers in this research may significantly impact on a successful return to school.

Extending the Similarity-Attraction Effect : The effects of When-Similarity in mediated communication

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kaptein, M.C.; Castaneda, D.; Fernandez, N.; Nass, C.

2014-01-01

The feeling of connectedness experienced in computer-mediated relationships can be explained by the similarity-attraction effect (SAE). Though SAE is well established in psychology, the effects of some types of similarity have not yet been explored. In 2 studies, we demonstrate similarity-attraction

Understanding users

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Johannsen, Carl Gustav Viggo

2014-01-01

Segmentation of users can help libraries in the process of understanding user similarities and differences. Segmentation can also form the basis for selecting segments of target users and for developing tailored services for specific target segments. Several approaches and techniques have been...... tested in library contexts and the aim of this article is to identify the main approaches and to discuss their perspectives, including their strenghts and weaknesses in, especially, public library contexts. The purpose is also to prsent and discuss the results of a recent - 2014 - Danish library user...... segmentation project using computer-generated clusters. Compared to traditional marketing texts, this article also tries to identify user segments or images or metaphors by the library profession itself....

Renal Involvement in Preeclampsia: Similarities to VEGF Ablation Therapy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janina Müller-Deile

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Glomerular VEGF expression is critical for the maintenance and function of an intact filtration barrier. Alterations in glomerular VEGF bioavailability result in endothelial as well as in podocyte damage. Renal involvement in preeclampsia includes proteinuria, podocyturia, elevated blood pressure, edema, glomerular capillary endotheliosis, and thrombotic microangiopathy. At least the renal signs, symptoms, and other evidence can sufficiently be explained by reduced VEGF levels. The aim of this paper was to summarize our pathophysiological understanding of the renal involvement of preeclampsia and point out similarities to the renal side effects of VEGF-ablation therapy.

The semantic similarity ensemble

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Ballatore

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Computational measures of semantic similarity between geographic terms provide valuable support across geographic information retrieval, data mining, and information integration. To date, a wide variety of approaches to geo-semantic similarity have been devised. A judgment of similarity is not intrinsically right or wrong, but obtains a certain degree of cognitive plausibility, depending on how closely it mimics human behavior. Thus selecting the most appropriate measure for a specific task is a significant challenge. To address this issue, we make an analogy between computational similarity measures and soliciting domain expert opinions, which incorporate a subjective set of beliefs, perceptions, hypotheses, and epistemic biases. Following this analogy, we define the semantic similarity ensemble (SSE as a composition of different similarity measures, acting as a panel of experts having to reach a decision on the semantic similarity of a set of geographic terms. The approach is evaluated in comparison to human judgments, and results indicate that an SSE performs better than the average of its parts. Although the best member tends to outperform the ensemble, all ensembles outperform the average performance of each ensemble's member. Hence, in contexts where the best measure is unknown, the ensemble provides a more cognitively plausible approach.

Similarity and Modeling in Science and Engineering

CERN Document Server

Kuneš, Josef

2012-01-01

The present text sets itself in relief to other titles on the subject in that it addresses the means and methodologies versus a narrow specific-task oriented approach. Concepts and their developments which evolved to meet the changing needs of applications are addressed. This approach provides the reader with a general tool-box to apply to their specific needs. Two important tools are presented: dimensional analysis and the similarity analysis methods. The fundamental point of view, enabling one to sort all models, is that of information flux between a model and an original expressed by the similarity and abstraction. Each chapter includes original examples and ap-plications. In this respect, the models can be divided into several groups. The following models are dealt with separately by chapter; mathematical and physical models, physical analogues, deterministic, stochastic, and cybernetic computer models. The mathematical models are divided into asymptotic and phenomenological models. The phenomenological m...

Similarity problems and completely bounded maps

CERN Document Server

Pisier, Gilles

2001-01-01

These notes revolve around three similarity problems, appearing in three different contexts, but all dealing with the space B(H) of all bounded operators on a complex Hilbert space H. The first one deals with group representations, the second one with C* -algebras and the third one with the disc algebra. We describe them in detail in the introduction which follows. This volume is devoted to the background necessary to understand these three problems, to the solutions that are known in some special cases and to numerous related concepts, results, counterexamples or extensions which their investigation has generated. While the three problems seem different, it is possible to place them in a common framework using the key concept of "complete boundedness", which we present in detail. Using this notion, the three problems can all be formulated as asking whether "boundedness" implies "complete boundedness" for linear maps satisfying certain additional algebraic identities. Two chapters have been added on the HALMO...

Similar Symmetries: The Role of Wallpaper Groups in Perceptual Texture Similarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fraser Halley

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Periodic patterns and symmetries are striking visual properties that have been used decoratively around the world throughout human history. Periodic patterns can be mathematically classified into one of 17 different Wallpaper groups, and while computational models have been developed which can extract an image's symmetry group, very little work has been done on how humans perceive these patterns. This study presents the results from a grouping experiment using stimuli from the different wallpaper groups. We find that while different images from the same wallpaper group are perceived as similar to one another, not all groups have the same degree of self-similarity. The similarity relationships between wallpaper groups appear to be dominated by rotations.

Similarity-dissimilarity plot for visualization of high dimensional data in biomedical pattern classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Arif, Muhammad

2012-06-01

In pattern classification problems, feature extraction is an important step. Quality of features in discriminating different classes plays an important role in pattern classification problems. In real life, pattern classification may require high dimensional feature space and it is impossible to visualize the feature space if the dimension of feature space is greater than four. In this paper, we have proposed a Similarity-Dissimilarity plot which can project high dimensional space to a two dimensional space while retaining important characteristics required to assess the discrimination quality of the features. Similarity-dissimilarity plot can reveal information about the amount of overlap of features of different classes. Separable data points of different classes will also be visible on the plot which can be classified correctly using appropriate classifier. Hence, approximate classification accuracy can be predicted. Moreover, it is possible to know about whom class the misclassified data points will be confused by the classifier. Outlier data points can also be located on the similarity-dissimilarity plot. Various examples of synthetic data are used to highlight important characteristics of the proposed plot. Some real life examples from biomedical data are also used for the analysis. The proposed plot is independent of number of dimensions of the feature space.

Understanding jet noise.

Science.gov (United States)

Karabasov, S A

2010-08-13

Jets are one of the most fascinating topics in fluid mechanics. For aeronautics, turbulent jet-noise modelling is particularly challenging, not only because of the poor understanding of high Reynolds number turbulence, but also because of the extremely low acoustic efficiency of high-speed jets. Turbulent jet-noise models starting from the classical Lighthill acoustic analogy to state-of-the art models were considered. No attempt was made to present any complete overview of jet-noise theories. Instead, the aim was to emphasize the importance of sound generation and mean-flow propagation effects, as well as their interference, for the understanding and prediction of jet noise.

Sequence Similarity Presenter: a tool for the graphic display of similarities of long sequences for use in presentations.

Science.gov (United States)

Fröhlich, K U

1994-04-01

A new method for the presentation of alignments of long sequences is described. The degree of identity for the aligned sequences is averaged for sections of a fixed number of residues. The resulting values are converted to shades of gray, with white corresponding to lack of identity and black corresponding to perfect identity. A sequence alignment is represented as a bar filled with varying shades of gray. The display is compact and allows for a fast and intuitive recognition of the distribution of regions with a high similarity. It is well suited for the presentation of alignments of long sequences, e.g. of protein superfamilies, in plenary lectures. The method is implemented as a HyperCard stack for Apple Macintosh computers. Several options for the modification of the output are available (e.g. background reduction, size of the summation window, consideration of amino acid similarity, inclusion of graphic markers to indicate specific domains). The output is a PostScript file which can be printed, imported as EPS or processed further with Adobe Illustrator.

Connoted hazard and perceived importance of fluorescent, neon, and standard safety colors.

Science.gov (United States)

Zielinska, O A; Mayhorn, C B; Wogalter, M S

2017-11-01

The perceived hazard and rated importance of standard safety, fluorescent, and neon colors are investigated. Colors are used in warnings to enhance hazard communication. Red has consistently been rated as the highest in perceived hazard. Orange, yellow, and black are the next highest in connoted hazard; however, there is discrepancy in their ordering. Safety standards, such as ANSI Z535.1, also list colors to convey important information, but little research has examined the perceived importance of colors. In addition to standard safety colors, fluorescent colors are more commonly used in warnings. Understanding hazard and importance perceptions of standard safety and fluorescent colors is necessary to create effective warnings. Ninety participants rated and ranked a total of 33 colors on both perceived hazard and perceived importance. Rated highest were the safety red colors from the American National Standard Institute (ANSI), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) together with three fluorescent colors (orange, yellow, and yellow-green) from 3 M on both dimensions. Rankings were similar to ratings except that fluorescent orange was the highest on perceived hazard, while fluorescent orange and safety red from the ANSI were ranked as the highest in perceived importance. Fluorescent colors convey hazard and importance levels as high as the standard safety red colors. Implications for conveying hazard and importance in warnings through color are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Towards "Thick Description" of Educational Transfer: Understanding a Japanese Institution's "Import" of European Language Policy

Science.gov (United States)

Rappleye, Jeremy; Imoto, Yuki; Horiguchi, Sachiko

2011-01-01

Globalisation and convergence in educational policy worldwide has reinvigorated, while rendering more complex, the classic theme of educational transfer. Framed by this wider pursuit of new understandings of a changing transfer/context puzzle, this paper explores how an ethnographic "thick description" might complement and extend recent…

Diffusion-like recommendation with enhanced similarity of objects

Science.gov (United States)

An, Ya-Hui; Dong, Qiang; Sun, Chong-Jing; Nie, Da-Cheng; Fu, Yan

2016-11-01

In the last decade, diversity and accuracy have been regarded as two important measures in evaluating a recommendation model. However, a clear concern is that a model focusing excessively on one measure will put the other one at risk, thus it is not easy to greatly improve diversity and accuracy simultaneously. In this paper, we propose to enhance the Resource-Allocation (RA) similarity in resource transfer equations of diffusion-like models, by giving a tunable exponent to the RA similarity, and traversing the value of this exponent to achieve the optimal recommendation results. In this way, we can increase the recommendation scores (allocated resource) of many unpopular objects. Experiments on three benchmark data sets, MovieLens, Netflix and RateYourMusic show that the modified models can yield remarkable performance improvement compared with the original ones.

Composites Similarity Analysis Method Based on Knowledge Set in Composites Quality Control

OpenAIRE

Li Haifeng

2016-01-01

Composites similarity analysis is an important link of composites review, it can not only to declare composites review rechecking, still help composites applicants promptly have the research content relevant progress and avoid duplication. This paper mainly studies the composites similarity model in composites review. With the actual experience of composites management, based on the author’s knowledge set theory, paper analyzes deeply knowledge set representation of composites knowledge, impr...

Uramex will have similar importance like that of Pemex

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Graef F, C.

1980-01-01

The activities of Uramex are presented, sole agency in the prospection, extraction and production of uranium and exclusively responsible for the elaboration of the nuclear fuels used in Mexico. Within the framework of the various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, a projection of long, intermediate and short term objectives with which to meet needs of supply in the future is also presented. (author)

In Silico target fishing: addressing a "Big Data" problem by ligand-based similarity rankings with data fusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xian; Xu, Yuan; Li, Shanshan; Wang, Yulan; Peng, Jianlong; Luo, Cheng; Luo, Xiaomin; Zheng, Mingyue; Chen, Kaixian; Jiang, Hualiang

2014-01-01

Ligand-based in silico target fishing can be used to identify the potential interacting target of bioactive ligands, which is useful for understanding the polypharmacology and safety profile of existing drugs. The underlying principle of the approach is that known bioactive ligands can be used as reference to predict the targets for a new compound. We tested a pipeline enabling large-scale target fishing and drug repositioning, based on simple fingerprint similarity rankings with data fusion. A large library containing 533 drug relevant targets with 179,807 active ligands was compiled, where each target was defined by its ligand set. For a given query molecule, its target profile is generated by similarity searching against the ligand sets assigned to each target, for which individual searches utilizing multiple reference structures are then fused into a single ranking list representing the potential target interaction profile of the query compound. The proposed approach was validated by 10-fold cross validation and two external tests using data from DrugBank and Therapeutic Target Database (TTD). The use of the approach was further demonstrated with some examples concerning the drug repositioning and drug side-effects prediction. The promising results suggest that the proposed method is useful for not only finding promiscuous drugs for their new usages, but also predicting some important toxic liabilities. With the rapid increasing volume and diversity of data concerning drug related targets and their ligands, the simple ligand-based target fishing approach would play an important role in assisting future drug design and discovery.

The Diagnosis and Understanding of Apraxia of Speech: Why Including Neurodegenerative Etiologies May Be Important

Science.gov (United States)

Duffy, Joseph R.; Josephs, Keith A.

2012-01-01

Purpose: To discuss apraxia of speech (AOS) as it occurs in neurodegenerative disease (progressive AOS [PAOS]) and how its careful study may contribute to general concepts of AOS and help refine its diagnostic criteria. Method: The article summarizes our current understanding of the clinical features and neuroanatomical and pathologic correlates…

Assessing and Improving Student Understanding of Tree-Thinking

Science.gov (United States)

Kummer, Tyler A.

Evolution is the unifying theory of biology. The importance of understanding evolution by those who study the origins, diversification and diversity life cannot be overstated. Because of its importance, in addition to a scientific study of evolution, many researchers have spent time studying the acceptance and the teaching of evolution. Phylogenetic Systematics is the field of study developed to understand the evolutionary history of organisms, traits, and genes. Tree-thinking is the term by which we identify concepts related to the evolutionary history of organisms. It is vital that those who undertake a study of biology be able to understand and interpret what information these phylogenies are meant to convey. In this project, we evaluated the current impact a traditional study of biology has on the misconceptions students hold by assessing tree-thinking in freshman biology students to those nearing the end of their studies. We found that the impact of studying biology was varied with some misconceptions changing significantly while others persisted. Despite the importance of tree-thinking no appropriately developed concept inventory exists to measure student understanding of these important concepts. We developed a concept inventory capable of filling this important need and provide evidence to support its use among undergraduate students. Finally, we developed and modified activities as well as courses based on best practices to improve teaching and learning of tree-thinking and organismal diversity. We accomplished this by focusing on two key questions. First, how do we best introduce students to tree-thinking and second does tree-thinking as a course theme enhance student understanding of not only tree-thinking but also organismal diversity. We found important evidence suggesting that introducing students to tree-thinking via building evolutionary trees was less successful than introducing the concept via tree interpretation and may have in fact introduced or

Gender similarities and differences.

Science.gov (United States)

Hyde, Janet Shibley

2014-01-01

Whether men and women are fundamentally different or similar has been debated for more than a century. This review summarizes major theories designed to explain gender differences: evolutionary theories, cognitive social learning theory, sociocultural theory, and expectancy-value theory. The gender similarities hypothesis raises the possibility of theorizing gender similarities. Statistical methods for the analysis of gender differences and similarities are reviewed, including effect sizes, meta-analysis, taxometric analysis, and equivalence testing. Then, relying mainly on evidence from meta-analyses, gender differences are reviewed in cognitive performance (e.g., math performance), personality and social behaviors (e.g., temperament, emotions, aggression, and leadership), and psychological well-being. The evidence on gender differences in variance is summarized. The final sections explore applications of intersectionality and directions for future research.

Shape understanding system machine understanding and human understanding

CERN Document Server

Les, Zbigniew

2015-01-01

This is the third book presenting selected results of research on the further development of the shape understanding system (SUS) carried out by authors in the newly founded Queen Jadwiga Research Institute of Understanding. In this book the new term Machine Understanding is introduced referring to a new area of research aiming to investigate the possibility of building machines with the ability to understand. It is presented that SUS needs to some extent mimic human understanding and for this reason machines are evaluated according to the rules applied for the evaluation of human understanding. The book shows how to formulate problems and how it can be tested if the machine is able to solve these problems.    

Understanding China's Transformations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Xing

The objective of this paper is to offer a framework of understanding the dialectical nexus between China's internal evolutions and the external influences with a focus on the century-long "challenge-response" dynamism. That is to explore how external factors helped shaping China's internal...... transformations, i.e. how generations of Chinese have been struggling in responding to the external challenges and attempting to sinicize external political ideas in order to change China from within. Likewise, it is equally important to understand how China's inner transformation contributed to reshaping...... the world. Each time, be it China's dominance or decline, the capitalist world system has to adjust and readjust itself to the opportunities and constraints brought about by the "China factors"....

3D Facial Similarity Measure Based on Geodesic Network and Curvatures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junli Zhao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Automated 3D facial similarity measure is a challenging and valuable research topic in anthropology and computer graphics. It is widely used in various fields, such as criminal investigation, kinship confirmation, and face recognition. This paper proposes a 3D facial similarity measure method based on a combination of geodesic and curvature features. Firstly, a geodesic network is generated for each face with geodesics and iso-geodesics determined and these network points are adopted as the correspondence across face models. Then, four metrics associated with curvatures, that is, the mean curvature, Gaussian curvature, shape index, and curvedness, are computed for each network point by using a weighted average of its neighborhood points. Finally, correlation coefficients according to these metrics are computed, respectively, as the similarity measures between two 3D face models. Experiments of different persons’ 3D facial models and different 3D facial models of the same person are implemented and compared with a subjective face similarity study. The results show that the geodesic network plays an important role in 3D facial similarity measure. The similarity measure defined by shape index is consistent with human’s subjective evaluation basically, and it can measure the 3D face similarity more objectively than the other indices.

Similarity of Ferrosilicon Submerged Arc Furnaces With Different Geometrical Parameters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Machulec B.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In order to determine reasons of unsatisfactory production output regarding one of the 12 MVA furnaces, a comparative analysis with a furnace of higher power that showed a markedly better production output was performed. For comparison of ferrosilicon furnaces with different geometrical parameters and transformer powers, the theory of physical similarity was applied. Geometrical, electrical and thermal parameters of the reaction zones are included in the comparative analysis. For furnaces with different geometrical parameters, it is important to ensure the same temperature conditions of the reaction zones. Due to diverse mechanisms of heat generation, different criteria for determination of thermal and electrical similarity for the upper and lower reaction zones were assumed contrary to other publications. The parameter c3 (Westly was assumed the similarity criterion for the upper furnace zones where heat is generated as a result of resistive heating while the parameter J1 (Jaccard was assumed the similarity criterion for the lower furnace zones where heat is generated due to arc radiation.

Color-size Relations of Disc Galaxies with Similar Stellar Masses

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, W.; Chang, R. X.; Shen, S. Y.; Zhang, B.

2011-01-01

To investigate the correlations between colors and sizes of disc galaxies with similar stellar masses, a sample of 7959 local face-on disc galaxies is collected from the main galaxy sample of the Seventh Data Release of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR7). Our results show that, under the condition that the stellar masses of disc galaxies are similar, the relation between u-r and size is weak, while g-r, r-i and r-z colors decrease with disk size. This means that the color-size relations of disc galaxies with similar stellar masses do exist, i.e., the more extended disc galaxies with similar stellar masses tend to have bluer colors. An artificial sample is constructed to confirm that this correlation is not driven by the color-stellar mass relations and size-stellar mass relation of disc galaxies. Our results suggest that the mass distribution of disk galaxies may have an important influence on their stellar formation history, i.e., the galaxies with more extended mass distribution evolve more slowly.

African American men's understanding and perceptions about prostate cancer: why multiple dimensions of health literacy are important in cancer communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Friedman, Daniela B; Corwin, Sara J; Dominick, Gregory M; Rose, India D

2009-10-01

Prostate cancer (PrCA) is the most diagnosed cancer among men in the United States, especially among African American (AA) men. The purpose of this formative study was to explore the implications of applying Nutbeam's multidimensional health literacy framework to AA men's understanding of PrCA information. Participants were 25 AA men aged 45 and older in South Carolina. Their functional health literacy was assessed using two modified Cloze tests and the Shortened Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (S-TOFHLA). Men also participated in interviews or focus groups during which they were asked questions about PrCA risk, prevention, and screening. Transcripts were reviewed for recurrent themes and analyzed qualitatively using NVivo7. Mean S-TOFHLA was 28.28 (+/-1.98), implying "adequate" comprehension. Mean Cloze was .71 (+/-.05) for a Grade 8 document and .66 (+/-.04) for a Grade 13 document, also showing "adequate" comprehension. Cloze scores for the Grade 8 resource were lower for participants with less education (P = .047). Despite having satisfactory literacy test scores, results from interviews and focus groups revealed participants' limited understanding and misconceptions about PrCA risk. Many wanted information about screening and family history delivered word-of-mouth by AA women and church pastors as few of them had ever received or actively sought out PrCA resources. Using Nutbeam's framework, gaps in health literacy which were not adequately captured by the validated tools emerged during the interviews and focus groups. Study findings provide important implications for PrCA communication with AA men to correct misperceptions about cancer risk and motivate preventive behaviors.

Qualitative similarities in the visual short-term memory of pigeons and people.

Science.gov (United States)

Gibson, Brett; Wasserman, Edward; Luck, Steven J

2011-10-01

Visual short-term memory plays a key role in guiding behavior, and individual differences in visual short-term memory capacity are strongly predictive of higher cognitive abilities. To provide a broader evolutionary context for understanding this memory system, we directly compared the behavior of pigeons and humans on a change detection task. Although pigeons had a lower storage capacity and a higher lapse rate than humans, both species stored multiple items in short-term memory and conformed to the same basic performance model. Thus, despite their very different evolutionary histories and neural architectures, pigeons and humans have functionally similar visual short-term memory systems, suggesting that the functional properties of visual short-term memory are subject to similar selective pressures across these distant species.

Extending the Similarity-Attraction Effect: The Effects of When-Similarity in Computer-Mediated Communication

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kaptein, M.C.; Castaneda, D.; Fernandez, N.; Nass, C.

2014-01-01

The feeling of connectedness experienced in computer-mediated relationships can be explained by the similarity-attraction effect (SAE). Though SAE is well established in psychology, the effects of some types of similarity have not yet been explored. In 2 studies, we demonstrate similarity-attraction

Remote Sensing of plant functional types: Relative importance of biochemical and structural plant traits

Science.gov (United States)

Kattenborn, Teja; Schmidtlein, Sebastian

2017-04-01

Monitoring ecosystems is a key priority in order to understand vegetation patterns, underlying resource cycles and changes their off. Driven by biotic and abiotic factors, plant species within an ecosystem are likely to share similar structural, physiological or phenological traits and can therefore be grouped into plant functional types (PFT). It can be assumed that plants which share similar traits also share similar optical characteristics. Therefore optical remote sensing was identified as a valuable tool for differentiating PFT. Although several authors list structural and biochemical plant traits which are important for differentiating PFT using hyperspectral remote sensing, there is no quantitative or qualitative information on the relative importance of these traits. Thus, little is known about the explicit role of plant traits for an optical discrimination of PFT. One of the main reasons for this is that various optical traits affect the same wavelength regions and it is therefore difficult to isolate the discriminative power of a single trait. A way to determine the effect of single plant traits on the optical reflectance of plant canopies is given by radiative transfer models. The most established radiative transfer model is PROSAIL, which incorporates biochemical and structural plant traits, such as pigment contents or leaf area index. In the present study 25 grassland species of different PFT were cultivated and traits relevant for PROSAIL were measured for the entire vegetation season of 2016. The information content of each trait for differentiating PFTs was determined by applying a Multi-response Permutation Procedure on the actual traits, as well as on simulated canopy spectra derived from PROSAIL. According to our results some traits, especially biochemical traits, show a weaker separability of PFT on a spectral level than compared to the actual trait measurements. Overall structural traits (leaf angle and leaf area index) are more important for

Self-Similarity of Plasmon Edge Modes on Koch Fractal Antennas.

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Bellido, Edson P; Bernasconi, Gabriel D; Rossouw, David; Butet, Jérémy; Martin, Olivier J F; Botton, Gianluigi A

2017-11-28

We investigate the plasmonic behavior of Koch snowflake fractal geometries and their possible application as broadband optical antennas. Lithographically defined planar silver Koch fractal antennas were fabricated and characterized with high spatial and spectral resolution using electron energy loss spectroscopy. The experimental data are supported by numerical calculations carried out with a surface integral equation method. Multiple surface plasmon edge modes supported by the fractal structures have been imaged and analyzed. Furthermore, by isolating and reproducing self-similar features in long silver strip antennas, the edge modes present in the Koch snowflake fractals are identified. We demonstrate that the fractal response can be obtained by the sum of basic self-similar segments called characteristic edge units. Interestingly, the plasmon edge modes follow a fractal-scaling rule that depends on these self-similar segments formed in the structure after a fractal iteration. As the size of a fractal structure is reduced, coupling of the modes in the characteristic edge units becomes relevant, and the symmetry of the fractal affects the formation of hybrid modes. This analysis can be utilized not only to understand the edge modes in other planar structures but also in the design and fabrication of fractal structures for nanophotonic applications.

Self-similarity and scaling theory of complex networks

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Chaoming

Scale-free networks have been studied extensively due to their relevance to many real systems as diverse as the World Wide Web (WWW), the Internet, biological and social networks. We present a novel approach to the analysis of scale-free networks, revealing that their structure is self-similar. This result is achieved by the application of a renormalization procedure which coarse-grains the system into boxes containing nodes within a given "size". Concurrently, we identify a power-law relation between the number of boxes needed to cover the network and the size of the box defining a self-similar exponent, which classifies fractal and non-fractal networks. By using the concept of renormalization as a mechanism for the growth of fractal and non-fractal modular networks, we show that the key principle that gives rise to the fractal architecture of networks is a strong effective "repulsion" between the most connected nodes (hubs) on all length scales, rendering them very dispersed. We show that a robust network comprised of functional modules, such as a cellular network, necessitates a fractal topology, suggestive of a evolutionary drive for their existence. These fundamental properties help to understand the emergence of the scale-free property in complex networks.

Understanding and control of optical performance from ceramic materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barbour, J.C.; Knapp, J.A.; Potter, B.G.; Jennison, D.R.; Verdozzi, C.A.; Follstaedt, D.M.; Bendale, R.D.; Simmons, J.H.

1998-06-01

This report summarizes a two-year Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program to gain understanding and control of the important parameters which govern the optical performance of rare-earth (RE) doped ceramics. This LDRD developed the capability to determine stable atomic arrangements in RE doped alumina using local density functional theory, and to model the luminescence from RE-doped alumina using molecular dynamic simulations combined with crystal-field calculations. Local structural features for different phases of alumina were examined experimentally by comparing their photoluminescence spectra and the atomic arrangement of the amorphous phase was determined to be similar to that of the gamma phase. The luminescence lifetimes were correlated to these differences in the local structure. The design of both high and low-phonon energy host materials was demonstrated through the growth of Er-doped aluminum oxide and lanthanum oxide. Multicomponent structures of rare-earth doped telluride glass in an alumina and silica matrix were also prepared. Finally, the optical performance of Er-doped alumina was determined as a function of hydrogen content in the host matrix. This LDRD is the groundwork for future experimentation to understand the effects of ionizing radiation on the optical properties of RE-doped ceramic materials used in space and other radiation environments

Airway disease: similarities and differences between asthma, COPD and bronchiectasis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rodrigo Athanazio

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Airway diseases are highly prevalent worldwide; however, the prevalence of these diseases is underestimated. Although these diseases present several common characteristics, they have different clinical outcomes. The differentiation between asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis in the early stage of disease is extremely important for the adoption of appropriate therapeutic measures. However, because of the high prevalence of these diseases and the common pathophysiological pathways, some patients with different diseases may present with similar symptoms. The objective of this review is to highlight the similarities and differences between these diseases in terms of the risk factors, pathophysiology, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.

Understanding the importance of therapeutic relationships in the development of self-management behaviours during cancer rehabilitation: a qualitative research protocol.

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Wilkinson, Wendy M; Rance, Jaynie; Fitzsimmons, Deborah

2017-01-17

Cancer is a growing health, social and economic problem. 1 in 3 people in the UK will develop cancer in their lifetime. With survival rates rising to over 50%, the long-term needs of cancer survivors are of growing importance. Cancer rehabilitation is tailored to address the physical or psychosocial decline in ability to engage in daily activities. Its use is supported by high-quality international, multicentre research. Incorporating strategies for self-management behaviour development into rehabilitation can prepare individuals for cancer survivorship. However, healthcare professionals will need to adjust their therapeutic interactions accordingly. Research is yet to clarify the impact of the therapeutic relationship on rehabilitation outcomes in cancer. This study aims to explore the impact of therapeutic relationships on self-management behaviours after cancer. This qualitative study aims to understand cancer rehabilitation participants' beliefs regarding the importance of therapeutic relationships in developing self-management behaviours. A sample representative of a local cancer rehabilitation cohort will be asked to complete a semistructured interview to identify their perspectives on the importance of therapeutic relationships in cancer rehabilitation. Data obtained from the interviews will be analysed, coded and entered into a Delphi questionnaire for circulation to a local cancer rehabilitation population to determine if the views expressed by the interviewees are supported by group consensus. This study was approved by Wales Research Ethics Committee 6 (15/WA/0331) in April 2016. Findings will be disseminated through the first author's doctoral thesis; peer-reviewed journals; local, national and international conference presentations; and public events involving research participants and the general public. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Ministerial Importance and Survival in Government

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bright, Jonathan; Döring, Holger; Little, Conor

2015-01-01

less important ministerial positions. Age, prior government experience and the size of the party to which the minister belongs are also associated with consistently significant effects. Further, the study explores the determinants of survival for two types of risk – exiting government with one’s party...... and exiting without it – showing that the effects of ministerial importance and other covariates are markedly different for these two types of exit. The findings have important implications for the understanding of ministerial and governmental stability....

Exploring similarities among many species distributions

Science.gov (United States)

Simmerman, Scott; Wang, Jingyuan; Osborne, James; Shook, Kimberly; Huang, Jian; Godsoe, William; Simons, Theodore R.

2012-01-01

Collecting species presence data and then building models to predict species distribution has been long practiced in the field of ecology for the purpose of improving our understanding of species relationships with each other and with the environment. Due to limitations of computing power as well as limited means of using modeling software on HPC facilities, past species distribution studies have been unable to fully explore diverse data sets. We build a system that can, for the first time to our knowledge, leverage HPC to support effective exploration of species similarities in distribution as well as their dependencies on common environmental conditions. Our system can also compute and reveal uncertainties in the modeling results enabling domain experts to make informed judgments about the data. Our work was motivated by and centered around data collection efforts within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that date back to the 1940s. Our findings present new research opportunities in ecology and produce actionable field-work items for biodiversity management personnel to include in their planning of daily management activities.

Understanding the petrochemical cycle: Part 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sedriks, W.

1994-01-01

Fitness in the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) arena involves understanding and coping with business cycles: supply and demand. This becomes increasingly more important as the industry globalizes and matures. Competitive-edge thinking needs to look hard at the forces that influence business cycles. Recognition of potential pitfalls is very important when considering: future capacity expansion, mergers and acquisitions, market departure, plant closure, potential product substitution, etc. Understanding pricing mechanisms and the workings of hockey-stick profitability profiles help HPI operators endure cycle downturns and prepare plants to maximize profits for the next upswing. The paper discusses characteristic trends, cycles in the hydrocarbon processing industry, current conditions, and mitigating cycle effects

Models for discrete-time self-similar vector processes with application to network traffic

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Seungsin; Rao, Raghuveer M.; Narasimha, Rajesh

2003-07-01

The paper defines self-similarity for vector processes by employing the discrete-time continuous-dilation operation which has successfully been used previously by the authors to define 1-D discrete-time stochastic self-similar processes. To define self-similarity of vector processes, it is required to consider the cross-correlation functions between different 1-D processes as well as the autocorrelation function of each constituent 1-D process in it. System models to synthesize self-similar vector processes are constructed based on the definition. With these systems, it is possible to generate self-similar vector processes from white noise inputs. An important aspect of the proposed models is that they can be used to synthesize various types of self-similar vector processes by choosing proper parameters. Additionally, the paper presents evidence of vector self-similarity in two-channel wireless LAN data and applies the aforementioned systems to simulate the corresponding network traffic traces.

Destination-Promoted And Visitor-Generated Images – Do They Represent Similar Stories?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tussyadiah, Iis

2010-01-01

Drawing on the concept of mediation and scripting, this chapter applies a content-extraction method in an attempt to identify similarities and differences between images used by destination marketers and those shared by tourists at the visit and post-visit stages, and, most importantly, to identify...... the values created by the shared images for audiences in tourism settings. The official image data were selected from photo galleries of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) website (gophila.com), resulting in 412 samples. Similarities of images provided on the GoPhila photo...... galleries within and between categories prove that destination marketing organizations have typically used similar types of images to communicate notions of the tourist experience to reinforce the desired image in the minds of potential travellers. On the other hand, based on the high similarities...

Extension of frequency-based dissimilarity for retrieving similar plasma waveforms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hochin, Teruhisa; Koyama, Katsumasa; Nakanishi, Hideya; Kojima, Mamoru

2008-01-01

Some computer-aided assistance in finding the waveforms similar to a waveform has become indispensable for accelerating data analysis in the plasma experiments. For the slowly-varying waveforms and those having time-sectional oscillation patterns, the methods using the Fourier series coefficients of waveforms in calculating the dissimilarity have successfully improved the performance in retrieving similar waveforms. This paper treats severely-varying waveforms, and proposes two extensions to the dissimilarity of waveforms. The first extension is to capture the difference of the importance of the Fourier series coefficients of waveforms against frequency. The second extension is to consider the outlines of waveforms. The correctness of the extended dissimilarity is experimentally evaluated by using the metrics used in evaluating that of the information retrieval, i.e. precision and recall. The experimental results show that the extended dissimilarity could improve the correctness of the similarity retrieval of plasma waveforms

Accounting for trip frequency in importance-performance analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Joshua K. Gill; J.M. Bowker; John C. Bergstrom; Stanley J. Zarnoch

2010-01-01

Understanding customer satisfaction is critical to the successful operation of both privately and publicly managed recreation venues. A popular tool for assessing recreation visitor satisfaction is Importance- Performance Analysis (IPA). IPA provides resource managers, government officials, and private businesses with easy-to-understand and -use information about...

Hepatitis A and hepatitis C viruses: divergent infection outcomes marked by similarities in induction and evasion of interferon responses.

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Lin; Lemon, Stanley M

2010-11-01

Hepatitis A and hepatitis C viruses (HAV and HCV) are both positive-strand ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses with hepatotropic lifestyles. Despite several important differences, they share many biological and molecular features and similar genome replication schemes. Despite this, HAV infections are usually effectively controlled by the host with elimination of the virus, whereas HCV most often is able to establish lifelong persistent infection. The mechanisms underlying this difference are unknown. The cellular helicases RIG-I and MDA5, and Toll-like receptor 3, are pattern recognition receptors that sense virus-derived RNAs within hepatocytes in the liver. Activation of these receptors leads to their interaction with specific adaptor proteins, mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein (MAVS) and TIR-domain-containing adapter-inducing interferon-β (TRIF), respectively, which engage downstream kinases to activate two crucial transcription factors, nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3). This results in the induction of interferons (IFNs) and IFN-stimulated genes that ultimately establish an antiviral state. These signaling pathways are central to host antiviral defense and thus frequent targets for viral interference. Both HAV and HCV express proteases that target signal transduction through these pathways and that block the induction of IFNs upon sensing of viral RNA by these receptors. An understanding of the differences and similarities in the early innate immune responses to these infections is likely to provide important insights into the mechanism underlying the long-term persistence of HCV. © Thieme Medical Publishers.

Literature Review of Applying Visual Method to Understand Mathematics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu Xiaojuan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available As a new method to understand mathematics, visualization offers a new way of understanding mathematical principles and phenomena via image thinking and geometric explanation. It aims to deepen the understanding of the nature of concepts or phenomena and enhance the cognitive ability of learners. This paper collates and summarizes the application of this visual method in the understanding of mathematics. It also makes a literature review of the existing research, especially with a visual demonstration of Euler’s formula, introduces the application of this method in solving relevant mathematical problems, and points out the differences and similarities between the visualization method and the numerical-graphic combination method, as well as matters needing attention for its application.

Understanding exercise uptake and adherence for people with chronic conditions: a new model demonstrating the importance of exercise identity, benefits of attending and support.

Science.gov (United States)

Pentecost, C; Taket, A

2011-10-01

Understanding the factors influencing uptake and adherence to exercise for people with chronic conditions from different ages, genders and ethnicities is important for planning exercise services. This paper presents evidence supporting a new model of exercise uptake and adherence applicable to people with chronic conditions from diverse socio-demographic backgrounds. The study is based on 130 semi-structured interviews with people with chronic conditions, including both those who did and those who did not attend exercise services, and supporters of those who attended. Analysis followed the guidelines of 'framework analysis'. Results show that three factors were particularly important in influencing adherence behavior: (i) exercise identity, (ii) support and (iii) perceived benefits of attending. Social and cultural identities impacted on willingness to exercise, importance of exercise and perceived appropriateness of exercising. Having at least one supporter providing different types of support was associated with high levels of attendance. Those people who valued the social and psychological benefits of attending were more likely to be high attenders. The new model illustrates interaction between these three factors and discusses how these can be taken into account when planning exercise services for people with chronic conditions drawn from diverse socio-demographic groups.

On different forms of self similarity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aswathy, R.K.; Mathew, Sunil

2016-01-01

Fractal geometry is mainly based on the idea of self-similar forms. To be self-similar, a shape must able to be divided into parts that are smaller copies, which are more or less similar to the whole. There are different forms of self similarity in nature and mathematics. In this paper, some of the topological properties of super self similar sets are discussed. It is proved that in a complete metric space with two or more elements, the set of all non super self similar sets are dense in the set of all non-empty compact sub sets. It is also proved that the product of self similar sets are super self similar in product metric spaces and that the super self similarity is preserved under isometry. A characterization of super self similar sets using contracting sub self similarity is also presented. Some relevant counterexamples are provided. The concepts of exact super and sub self similarity are introduced and a necessary and sufficient condition for a set to be exact super self similar in terms of condensation iterated function systems (Condensation IFS’s) is obtained. A method to generate exact sub self similar sets using condensation IFS’s and the denseness of exact super self similar sets are also discussed.

A unified frame of predicting side effects of drugs by using linear neighborhood similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wen; Yue, Xiang; Liu, Feng; Chen, Yanlin; Tu, Shikui; Zhang, Xining

2017-12-14

Drug side effects are one of main concerns in the drug discovery, which gains wide attentions. Investigating drug side effects is of great importance, and the computational prediction can help to guide wet experiments. As far as we known, a great number of computational methods have been proposed for the side effect predictions. The assumption that similar drugs may induce same side effects is usually employed for modeling, and how to calculate the drug-drug similarity is critical in the side effect predictions. In this paper, we present a novel measure of drug-drug similarity named "linear neighborhood similarity", which is calculated in a drug feature space by exploring linear neighborhood relationship. Then, we transfer the similarity from the feature space into the side effect space, and predict drug side effects by propagating known side effect information through a similarity-based graph. Under a unified frame based on the linear neighborhood similarity, we propose method "LNSM" and its extension "LNSM-SMI" to predict side effects of new drugs, and propose the method "LNSM-MSE" to predict unobserved side effect of approved drugs. We evaluate the performances of LNSM and LNSM-SMI in predicting side effects of new drugs, and evaluate the performances of LNSM-MSE in predicting missing side effects of approved drugs. The results demonstrate that the linear neighborhood similarity can improve the performances of side effect prediction, and the linear neighborhood similarity-based methods can outperform existing side effect prediction methods. More importantly, the proposed methods can predict side effects of new drugs as well as unobserved side effects of approved drugs under a unified frame.

Similarity or difference?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Villadsen, Anders Ryom

2013-01-01

While the organizational structures and strategies of public organizations have attracted substantial research attention among public management scholars, little research has explored how these organizational core dimensions are interconnected and influenced by pressures for similarity....... In this paper I address this topic by exploring the relation between expenditure strategy isomorphism and structure isomorphism in Danish municipalities. Different literatures suggest that organizations exist in concurrent pressures for being similar to and different from other organizations in their field......-shaped relation exists between expenditure strategy isomorphism and structure isomorphism in a longitudinal quantitative study of Danish municipalities....

Processes of Similarity Judgment

Science.gov (United States)

Larkey, Levi B.; Markman, Arthur B.

2005-01-01

Similarity underlies fundamental cognitive capabilities such as memory, categorization, decision making, problem solving, and reasoning. Although recent approaches to similarity appreciate the structure of mental representations, they differ in the processes posited to operate over these representations. We present an experiment that…

Judgments of brand similarity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bijmolt, THA; Wedel, M; Pieters, RGM; DeSarbo, WS

This paper provides empirical insight into the way consumers make pairwise similarity judgments between brands, and how familiarity with the brands, serial position of the pair in a sequence, and the presentation format affect these judgments. Within the similarity judgment process both the

Renewing the Respect for Similarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shimon eEdelman

2012-07-01

Full Text Available In psychology, the concept of similarity has traditionally evoked a mixture of respect, stemmingfrom its ubiquity and intuitive appeal, and concern, due to its dependence on the framing of the problemat hand and on its context. We argue for a renewed focus on similarity as an explanatory concept, bysurveying established results and new developments in the theory and methods of similarity-preservingassociative lookup and dimensionality reduction — critical components of many cognitive functions, aswell as of intelligent data management in computer vision. We focus in particular on the growing familyof algorithms that support associative memory by performing hashing that respects local similarity, andon the uses of similarity in representing structured objects and scenes. Insofar as these similarity-basedideas and methods are useful in cognitive modeling and in AI applications, they should be included inthe core conceptual toolkit of computational neuroscience.

Interviewing to Understand Strengths

Science.gov (United States)

Hass, Michael R.

2018-01-01

Interviewing clients about their strengths is an important part of developing a complete understanding of their lives and has several advantages over simply focusing on problems and pathology. Prerequisites for skillfully interviewing for strengths include the communication skills that emerge from a stance of not knowing, developing a vocabulary…

Self-similar continued root approximants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gluzman, S.; Yukalov, V.I.

2012-01-01

A novel method of summing asymptotic series is advanced. Such series repeatedly arise when employing perturbation theory in powers of a small parameter for complicated problems of condensed matter physics, statistical physics, and various applied problems. The method is based on the self-similar approximation theory involving self-similar root approximants. The constructed self-similar continued roots extrapolate asymptotic series to finite values of the expansion parameter. The self-similar continued roots contain, as a particular case, continued fractions and Padé approximants. A theorem on the convergence of the self-similar continued roots is proved. The method is illustrated by several examples from condensed-matter physics.

Upper High School Students' Understanding of Electromagnetism

Science.gov (United States)

Saglam, Murat; Millar, Robin

2006-01-01

Although electromagnetism is an important component of upper secondary school physics syllabuses in many countries, there has been relatively little research on students' understanding of the topic. A written test consisting of 16 diagnostic questions was developed and used to survey the understanding of electromagnetism of upper secondary school…

A landscape ecology approach identifies important drivers of urban biodiversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Turrini, Tabea; Knop, Eva

2015-04-01

Cities are growing rapidly worldwide, yet a mechanistic understanding of the impact of urbanization on biodiversity is lacking. We assessed the impact of urbanization on arthropod diversity (species richness and evenness) and abundance in a study of six cities and nearby intensively managed agricultural areas. Within the urban ecosystem, we disentangled the relative importance of two key landscape factors affecting biodiversity, namely the amount of vegetated area and patch isolation. To do so, we a priori selected sites that independently varied in the amount of vegetated area in the surrounding landscape at the 500-m scale and patch isolation at the 100-m scale, and we hold local patch characteristics constant. As indicator groups, we used bugs, beetles, leafhoppers, and spiders. Compared to intensively managed agricultural ecosystems, urban ecosystems supported a higher abundance of most indicator groups, a higher number of bug species, and a lower evenness of bug and beetle species. Within cities, a high amount of vegetated area increased species richness and abundance of most arthropod groups, whereas evenness showed no clear pattern. Patch isolation played only a limited role in urban ecosystems, which contrasts findings from agro-ecological studies. Our results show that urban areas can harbor a similar arthropod diversity and abundance compared to intensively managed agricultural ecosystems. Further, negative consequences of urbanization on arthropod diversity can be mitigated by providing sufficient vegetated space in the urban area, while patch connectivity is less important in an urban context. This highlights the need for applying a landscape ecological approach to understand the mechanisms shaping urban biodiversity and underlines the potential of appropriate urban planning for mitigating biodiversity loss. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Similarities and differences in neuroplasticity mechanisms between brain gliomas and nonlesional epilepsy.

Science.gov (United States)

Bourdillon, Pierre; Apra, Caroline; Guénot, Marc; Duffau, Hugues

2017-12-01

To analyze the conceptual and practical implications of a hodotopic approach in neurosurgery, and to compare the similarities and the differences in neuroplasticity mechanisms between low-grade gliomas and nonlesional epilepsy. We review the recent data about the hodotopic organization of the brain connectome, alongside the organization of epileptic networks, and analyze how these two structures interact, suggesting therapeutic prospects. Then we focus on the mechanisms of neuroplasticity involved in glioma natural course and after glioma surgery. Comparing these mechanisms with those in action in an epileptic brain highlights their differences, but more importantly, gives an original perspective to the consequences of surgery on an epileptic brain and what could be expected after pathologic white matter removal. The organization of the brain connectome and the neuroplasticity is the same in all humans, but different pathologic mechanisms are involved, and specific therapeutic approaches have been developed in epilepsy and glioma surgery. We demonstrate that the "connectome" point of view can enrich epilepsy care. We also underscore how theoretical and practical tools commonly used in epilepsy investigations, such as invasive electroencephalography, can be of great help in awake surgery in general. Putting together advances in understanding of connectomics and neuroplasticity, leads to significant conceptual improvements in epilepsy surgery. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 International League Against Epilepsy.

Neural Global Pattern Similarity Underlies True and False Memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Ye, Zhifang; Zhu, Bi; Zhuang, Liping; Lu, Zhonglin; Chen, Chuansheng; Xue, Gui

2016-06-22

The neural processes giving rise to human memory strength signals remain poorly understood. Inspired by formal computational models that posit a central role of global matching in memory strength, we tested a novel hypothesis that the strengths of both true and false memories arise from the global similarity of an item's neural activation pattern during retrieval to that of all the studied items during encoding (i.e., the encoding-retrieval neural global pattern similarity [ER-nGPS]). We revealed multiple ER-nGPS signals that carried distinct information and contributed differentially to true and false memories: Whereas the ER-nGPS in the parietal regions reflected semantic similarity and was scaled with the recognition strengths of both true and false memories, ER-nGPS in the visual cortex contributed solely to true memory. Moreover, ER-nGPS differences between the parietal and visual cortices were correlated with frontal monitoring processes. By combining computational and neuroimaging approaches, our results advance a mechanistic understanding of memory strength in recognition. What neural processes give rise to memory strength signals, and lead to our conscious feelings of familiarity? Using fMRI, we found that the memory strength of a given item depends not only on how it was encoded during learning, but also on the similarity of its neural representation with other studied items. The global neural matching signal, mainly in the parietal lobule, could account for the memory strengths of both studied and unstudied items. Interestingly, a different global matching signal, originated from the visual cortex, could distinguish true from false memories. The findings reveal multiple neural mechanisms underlying the memory strengths of events registered in the brain. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/366792-11$15.00/0.

Improving Zernike moments comparison for optimal similarity and rotation angle retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Revaud, Jérôme; Lavoué, Guillaume; Baskurt, Atilla

2009-04-01

Zernike moments constitute a powerful shape descriptor in terms of robustness and description capability. However the classical way of comparing two Zernike descriptors only takes into account the magnitude of the moments and loses the phase information. The novelty of our approach is to take advantage of the phase information in the comparison process while still preserving the invariance to rotation. This new Zernike comparator provides a more accurate similarity measure together with the optimal rotation angle between the patterns, while keeping the same complexity as the classical approach. This angle information is particularly of interest for many applications, including 3D scene understanding through images. Experiments demonstrate that our comparator outperforms the classical one in terms of similarity measure. In particular the robustness of the retrieval against noise and geometric deformation is greatly improved. Moreover, the rotation angle estimation is also more accurate than state-of-the-art algorithms.

Smart marketing may improve public understanding of the anesthesia profession.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Barak; Ogorek, Daniel; Oifa, Stanislav; Cattan, Anat; Matot, Idit

2015-01-01

A 2005 survey led by the Israeli Society of Anesthesiologists (ISA) found that large parts of the Israeli public are not familiar with the profession of anesthesia. The ISA has subsequently been conducting a public campaign for several years with the aim to enhance community knowledge regarding the anesthesiologists' training and their critical role in the perioperative period. The present study sought to evaluate the value of a campaign aiming to enhance public understanding of the importance of a medical profession; more specifically, a campaign to promote awareness of the community regarding the anesthesia profession. If proved to be successful, public campaigns may be considered in other countries and for other medical professions with similar difficulties. In 2013, five hundred participants from the general community were asked to answer a questionnaire focusing on the profession of anesthesia. Public knowledge has improved following the campaign. Specifically, improvement was demonstrated regarding the qualification of the anesthesiologist as an MD (92% vs. 64% in 2013 and 2005, respectively), and enhanced awareness of the anesthesia team's critical role in the operating room (OR) (48% vs. 30% in 2013 and 2005, respectively). The Israeli community is attentive to public campaigns that address the roles of a medical profession. Enhanced public knowledge regarding the importance of the anesthesia profession may have a significant impact on both the payment policy for anesthesiologists and on the recruitment of more physicians to the field of anesthesia. Public campaigns may be considered for other medical professions with similar difficulties.

Examining the relationship between pre- and postimplant geometry in prostate low-dose-rate brachytherapy and its correlation with dosimetric quality using the similarity concept.

Science.gov (United States)

Todor, Dorin A; Anscher, Mitchell S; Karlin, Jeremy D; Hagan, Michael P

2014-01-01

This is a retrospective study in which we define multiple metrics for similarity and then inquire on the relationship between similarity and currently used dosimetric quantities describing preimplant and postimplant plans. We analyzed a unique cohort of 94 consecutively performed prostate seed implant patients, associated with excellent dosimetric and clinical outcomes. For each patient, an ultrasound (US) preimplant and two CT postimplant (Day 0 and Day 30) studies were available. Measures for similarity were created and computed using feature vectors based on two classes of moments: first, invariant to rotation and translation, and the second polar-radius moments invariant to rotation, translation, and scaling. Both similarity measures were calibrated using controlled perturbations (random and systematic) of seed positions and contours in different size implants, thus producing meaningful numerical threshold values used in the clinical analysis. An important finding is that similarity, for both seed distributions and contours, improves significantly when scaling invariance is added to translation and rotation. No correlation between seed and contours similarity was found. In the setting of preplanned prostate seed implants using preloaded needles, based on our data, similarity between preimplant and postimplant plans does not correlate with either minimum dose to 90% of the volume of the prostate or analogous similarity metrics for prostate contours. We have developed novel tools and metrics, which will allow practitioners to better understand the relationship between preimplant and postimplant plans. Geometrical similarity between a preplan and an actual implant, although useful, does not seem to be necessary to achieve minimum dose to 90% of the volume of the prostate-good dosimetric implants. Copyright © 2014 American Brachytherapy Society. All rights reserved.

Reply to ''Comment on 'Extended self-similarity in turbulent flows' ''

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Benzi, R.; Ciliberto, S.; Tripiccione, R.; Baudet, C.; Massaioli, F.; Succi, S.

1995-01-01

In this Reply we question the conclusion of van de Water and Herweijer (WH) [preceding Comment, Phys. Rev. E 51, 2669 (1995)] about the evidence of multiscaling behavior in the dissipation range of turbulence. We perform the same analysis suggested by WH for the data set used by Benzi et al. [Phys. Rev. E 48, 29, (1993)] to establish extended self-similarity. At variance with WH, we do not observe any evidence of multiscaling. We argue that data filtering in WH could produce a misleading effect at very small scales. The combined effect of multiscaling and extended self-similarity is an important question that needs to be investigated in more detail, both theoretically and experimentally

Measurement of semantic similarity for land use and land cover classification systems

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Dongpo

2008-12-01

Land use and land cover (LULC) data is essential to environmental and ecological research. However, semantic heterogeneous of land use and land cover classification are often resulted from different data resources, different cultural contexts, and different utilities. Therefore, there is need to develop a method to measure, compare and integrate between land cover categories. To understand the meaning and the use of terminology from different domains, the common ontology approach is used to acquire information regarding the meaning of terms, and to compare two terms to determine how they might be related. Ontology is a formal specification of a shared conceptualization of a domain of interest. LULC classification system is a ontology. The semantic similarity method is used to compare to entities of three LULC classification systems: CORINE (European Environmental Agency), Oregon State, USA), and Taiwan. The semantic properties and relations firstly have been extracted from their definitions of LULC classification systems. Then semantic properties and relations of categories in three LULC classification systems are mutually compared. The visualization of semantic proximity is finally presented to explore the similarity or dissimilarity of data. This study shows the semantic similarity method efficiently detect semantic distance in three LULC classification systems and find out the semantic similar objects.

Ultra-accurate collaborative information filtering via directed user similarity

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Q.; Song, W.-J.; Liu, J.-G.

2014-07-01

A key challenge of the collaborative filtering (CF) information filtering is how to obtain the reliable and accurate results with the help of peers' recommendation. Since the similarities from small-degree users to large-degree users would be larger than the ones in opposite direction, the large-degree users' selections are recommended extensively by the traditional second-order CF algorithms. By considering the users' similarity direction and the second-order correlations to depress the influence of mainstream preferences, we present the directed second-order CF (HDCF) algorithm specifically to address the challenge of accuracy and diversity of the CF algorithm. The numerical results for two benchmark data sets, MovieLens and Netflix, show that the accuracy of the new algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art CF algorithms. Comparing with the CF algorithm based on random walks proposed by Liu et al. (Int. J. Mod. Phys. C, 20 (2009) 285) the average ranking score could reach 0.0767 and 0.0402, which is enhanced by 27.3% and 19.1% for MovieLens and Netflix, respectively. In addition, the diversity, precision and recall are also enhanced greatly. Without relying on any context-specific information, tuning the similarity direction of CF algorithms could obtain accurate and diverse recommendations. This work suggests that the user similarity direction is an important factor to improve the personalized recommendation performance.

Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2006-01-01

"Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding" is a 19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at university and higher-level educational institutions. It is based on the "Constructive Alignment" theory developed by Prof. John Biggs. The film delivers a foundation for understanding what...

Photonic Crystals with an Eye Pattern Similar to Peacock Tail Feathers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minghui Wang

2016-08-01

Full Text Available A facile fabrication of photonic crystals (PCs with an eye pattern similar to peacock tail feathers has been demonstrated by self-assembly of colloidal particles in a sandwich mode. The sandwich mode is formed by superhydrophilic flat substrate sandwiching the poly(styrene-methyl methacrylate-arylic acid (Poly(St-MMA-AA latex suspension (2 wt% by the hydrophobic one. The patterns are characterized by optical microscopy images, reflection spectra, and the relative scanning electronic microscope images. This work will provide beneficial help for the understanding of the self-assembly process of colloidal crystals.

Testing statistical self-similarity in the topology of river networks

Science.gov (United States)

Troutman, Brent M.; Mantilla, Ricardo; Gupta, Vijay K.

2010-01-01

Recent work has demonstrated that the topological properties of real river networks deviate significantly from predictions of Shreve's random model. At the same time the property of mean self-similarity postulated by Tokunaga's model is well supported by data. Recently, a new class of network model called random self-similar networks (RSN) that combines self-similarity and randomness has been introduced to replicate important topological features observed in real river networks. We investigate if the hypothesis of statistical self-similarity in the RSN model is supported by data on a set of 30 basins located across the continental United States that encompass a wide range of hydroclimatic variability. We demonstrate that the generators of the RSN model obey a geometric distribution, and self-similarity holds in a statistical sense in 26 of these 30 basins. The parameters describing the distribution of interior and exterior generators are tested to be statistically different and the difference is shown to produce the well-known Hack's law. The inter-basin variability of RSN parameters is found to be statistically significant. We also test generator dependence on two climatic indices, mean annual precipitation and radiative index of dryness. Some indication of climatic influence on the generators is detected, but this influence is not statistically significant with the sample size available. Finally, two key applications of the RSN model to hydrology and geomorphology are briefly discussed.

Improving our understanding of environmental controls on the distribution of C3 and C4 grasses.

Science.gov (United States)

Pau, Stephanie; Edwards, Erika J; Still, Christopher J

2013-01-01

A number of studies have demonstrated the ecological sorting of C3 and C4 grasses along temperature and moisture gradients. However, previous studies of C3 and C4 grass biogeography have often inadvertently compared species in different and relatively unrelated lineages, which are associated with different environmental settings and distinct adaptive traits. Such confounded comparisons of C3 and C4 grasses may bias our understanding of ecological sorting imposed strictly by photosynthetic pathway. Here, we used MaxEnt species distribution modeling in combination with satellite data to understand the functional diversity of C3 and C4 grasses by comparing both large clades and closely related sister taxa. Similar to previous work, we found that C4 grasses showed a preference for regions with higher temperatures and lower precipitation compared with grasses using the C3 pathway. However, air temperature differences were smaller (2 °C vs. 4 °C) and precipitation and % tree cover differences were larger (1783 mm vs. 755 mm, 21.3% vs. 7.7%, respectively) when comparing C3 and C4 grasses within the same clade vs. comparing all C4 and all C3 grasses (i.e., ignoring phylogenetic structure). These results were due to important differences in the environmental preferences of C3 BEP and PACMAD clades (the two main grass clades). Winter precipitation was found to be more important for understanding the distribution and environmental niche of C3 PACMADs in comparison with both C3 BEPs and C4 taxa, for which temperature was much more important. Results comparing closely related C3 -C4 sister taxa supported the patterns derived from our modeling of the larger clade groupings. Our findings, which are novel in comparing the distribution and niches of clades, demonstrate that the evolutionary history of taxa is important for understanding the functional diversity of C3 and C4 grasses, and should have implications for how grasslands will respond to global change. © 2012

Working across Disciplines to Understand Playful Learning in Educational Settings

Science.gov (United States)

van der Aalsvoort, Geerdina; Broadhead, Pat

2016-01-01

Educators stress the importance of play for children's cognitive, social, physical, and emotional development. In order to effectively advocate for the inclusion of play in education settings, it is important to fully understand it. Two researchers, one from England and one from the Netherlands, sought common ground for understanding what children…

Long-term experiments to better understand soil-human interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Bormann, B. T.; Homann, P. S.

2011-12-01

Interactions between soils and people may be transforming global conditions, but the interactions are poorly understood. Changes in soils have proven difficult to quantify, especially in complex ecosystems manifesting large spatiotemporal variability. Long-term ecosystem experiments that evaluate soil change and demonstrate alternative choices are important to understanding changes, discovering new controls and drivers, and influencing decisions. Inspired by agriculture studies, like Rothamsted, the US Forest Service established in 1990 a network of operational-scale experiments across the Pacific Northwest to evaluate long-term effects of different forest management and disturbance regimes. With a strong experimental design, these experiments are now helping to better understand the long-term effects of managing tree harvesting (clearcutting and thinning), woody debris, and tree and understory species composition, and-serendipitously-the effects of fire. Initial results from the Southern Oregon experimental site indicate surprisingly rapid soil changes in some regimes but not others. We've also learned that rapid change presents challenges to repeat sampling. We present our sample-archive and comparable-layer approaches that seek to accommodate changes in surface elevation, aggregation and disaggregation, and mineral-soil exports. Thinning mature forest stands (80-100 yrs old) did not significantly change soil C in 11-yrs. A small upper-layer C increase was observed after thinning, but it was similar to the control. Significant increases in upper-layer soil N were observed with most treatments, but all increases were similar to the control. Leaving woody debris had little effect. The most remarkable change occurred when mature stands were clearcut and Douglas-firs were planted and tended. Associated with rapid growth of Douglas-fir, an average of 8 Mg C ha-1 was lost from weathered soil 4-18 cm deep. This contrasts with clearcuts where early-seral hardwoods and

Public relations and public understanding in the nuclear industry in Europe

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roos, E.; Michel, A. [Belgonucleaire, Brussels (Belgium)

1995-12-31

Before talking about public understanding and public relations in the nuclear industry in Europe, a word about the mosaic structure of the European energy policy and public is required because a similar structure will be found in the European public understanding policy. Afterwards, we explain what communications tools are available and how the different European countries apply them.

Being similar while judging right and wrong: The effects of personal and situational similarity on moral judgements.

Science.gov (United States)

Pascal, Emilia

2017-07-20

This study investigated the effects of similarity with the transgressor and the victim on the perceived immorality of the transgression. Participants read two stories describing a person that cheated on their partner and a police officer that mistreated somebody. In the first story we manipulated participants' personal similarity to the transgressor and in the second their personal similarity to the victim. In each story, participants' past situational similarity to the target character was assessed according to their previous experiences of being in the same position. Results show that both personal and past situational similarity to the transgressor determine less severe moral judgements, while personal and past situational similarity with the victim have the opposite effect. We also tested several potential mediators of these effects, derived from competing theoretical accounts of the influence of similarity on perceived responsibility. Empathy emerged as mediating most of the effects of similarity on moral judgements, except those induced by past situational similarity with the victim. The foreseen probability of being in a similar situation mediated only the effects of similarity to the transgressor, and not those of similarity to the victim. Overall, results highlight the complex mechanisms of the influences of similarity on moral judgements. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

Self-similar cosmological models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chao, W Z [Cambridge Univ. (UK). Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

1981-07-01

The kinematics and dynamics of self-similar cosmological models are discussed. The degrees of freedom of the solutions of Einstein's equations for different types of models are listed. The relation between kinematic quantities and the classifications of the self-similarity group is examined. All dust local rotational symmetry models have been found.

Classification of peacock feather reflectance using principal component analysis similarity factors from multispectral imaging data.

Science.gov (United States)

Medina, José M; Díaz, José A; Vukusic, Pete

2015-04-20

Iridescent structural colors in biology exhibit sophisticated spatially-varying reflectance properties that depend on both the illumination and viewing angles. The classification of such spectral and spatial information in iridescent structurally colored surfaces is important to elucidate the functional role of irregularity and to improve understanding of color pattern formation at different length scales. In this study, we propose a non-invasive method for the spectral classification of spatial reflectance patterns at the micron scale based on the multispectral imaging technique and the principal component analysis similarity factor (PCASF). We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach and its component methods by detailing its use in the study of the angle-dependent reflectance properties of Pavo cristatus (the common peacock) feathers, a species of peafowl very well known to exhibit bright and saturated iridescent colors. We show that multispectral reflectance imaging and PCASF approaches can be used as effective tools for spectral recognition of iridescent patterns in the visible spectrum and provide meaningful information for spectral classification of the irregularity of the microstructure in iridescent plumage.

Image understanding using sparse representations

CERN Document Server

Thiagarajan, Jayaraman J; Turaga, Pavan; Spanias, Andreas

2014-01-01

Image understanding has been playing an increasingly crucial role in several inverse problems and computer vision. Sparse models form an important component in image understanding, since they emulate the activity of neural receptors in the primary visual cortex of the human brain. Sparse methods have been utilized in several learning problems because of their ability to provide parsimonious, interpretable, and efficient models. Exploiting the sparsity of natural signals has led to advances in several application areas including image compression, denoising, inpainting, compressed sensing, blin

Exploring Similarities and Differences in Personal Epistemologies of U.S. and German Elementary School Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Feucht, Florian C.; Bendixen, Lisa D.

2010-01-01

The current study examines the personal epistemology of fourth-grade elementary school teachers from Germany (n = 10) and the United States (n = 10) to gain a more nuanced understanding of teachers' beliefs about knowledge and knowing through a cross-cultural lens. Analyses of semi-structured interviews reveal similarities and differences in the…

Self-similar transmission properties of aperiodic Cantor potentials in gapped graphene

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez-González, Rogelio; Rodríguez-Vargas, Isaac; Díaz-Guerrero, Dan Sidney; Gaggero-Sager, Luis Manuel

2016-01-01

We investigate the transmission properties of quasiperiodic or aperiodic structures based on graphene arranged according to the Cantor sequence. In particular, we have found self-similar behaviour in the transmission spectra, and most importantly, we have calculated the scalability of the spectra. To do this, we implement and propose scaling rules for each one of the fundamental parameters: generation number, height of the barriers and length of the system. With this in mind we have been able to reproduce the reference transmission spectrum, applying the appropriate scaling rule, by means of the scaled transmission spectrum. These scaling rules are valid for both normal and oblique incidence, and as far as we can see the basic ingredients to obtain self-similar characteristics are: relativistic Dirac electrons, a self-similar structure and the non-conservation of the pseudo-spin.

Interaction between age and perceptual similarity in olfactory discrimination learning in F344 rats: relationships with spatial learning

Science.gov (United States)

Yoder, Wendy M.; Gaynor, Leslie S.; Burke, Sara N.; Setlow, Barry; Smith, David W.; Bizon, Jennifer L.

2017-01-01

Emerging evidence suggests that aging is associated with a reduced ability to distinguish perceptually similar stimuli in one’s environment. As the ability to accurately perceive and encode sensory information is foundational for explicit memory, understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of discrimination impairments that emerge with advancing age could help elucidate the mechanisms of mnemonic decline. To this end, there is a need for preclinical approaches that robustly and reliably model age-associated perceptual discrimination deficits. Taking advantage of rodents’ exceptional olfactory abilities, the present study applied rigorous psychophysical techniques to the evaluation of discrimination learning in young and aged F344 rats. Aging did not influence odor detection thresholds or the ability to discriminate between perceptually distinct odorants. In contrast, aged rats were disproportionately impaired relative to young on problems that required discriminations between perceptually similar olfactory stimuli. Importantly, these disproportionate impairments in discrimination learning did not simply reflect a global learning impairment in aged rats, as they performed other types of difficult discriminations on par with young rats. Among aged rats, discrimination deficits were strongly associated with spatial learning deficits. These findings reveal a new, sensitive behavioral approach for elucidating the neural mechanisms of cognitive decline associated with normal aging. PMID:28259065

Similarity analyses of chromatographic herbal fingerprints: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodarzi, Mohammad; Russell, Paul J; Vander Heyden, Yvan

2013-12-04

Herbal medicines are becoming again more popular in the developed countries because being "natural" and people thus often assume that they are inherently safe. Herbs have also been used worldwide for many centuries in the traditional medicines. The concern of their safety and efficacy has grown since increasing western interest. Herbal materials and their extracts are very complex, often including hundreds of compounds. A thorough understanding of their chemical composition is essential for conducting a safety risk assessment. However, herbal material can show considerable variability. The chemical constituents and their amounts in a herb can be different, due to growing conditions, such as climate and soil, the drying process, the harvest season, etc. Among the analytical methods, chromatographic fingerprinting has been recommended as a potential and reliable methodology for the identification and quality control of herbal medicines. Identification is needed to avoid fraud and adulteration. Currently, analyzing chromatographic herbal fingerprint data sets has become one of the most applied tools in quality assessment of herbal materials. Mostly, the entire chromatographic profiles are used to identify or to evaluate the quality of the herbs investigated. Occasionally only a limited number of compounds are considered. One approach to the safety risk assessment is to determine whether the herbal material is substantially equivalent to that which is either readily consumed in the diet, has a history of application or has earlier been commercialized i.e. to what is considered as reference material. In order to help determining substantial equivalence using fingerprint approaches, a quantitative measurement of similarity is required. In this paper, different (dis)similarity approaches, such as (dis)similarity metrics or exploratory analysis approaches applied on herbal medicinal fingerprints, are discussed and illustrated with several case studies. Copyright © 2013

Understanding brains: details, intuition, and big data.

Science.gov (United States)

Marder, Eve

2015-05-01

Understanding how the brain works requires a delicate balance between the appreciation of the importance of a multitude of biological details and the ability to see beyond those details to general principles. As technological innovations vastly increase the amount of data we collect, the importance of intuition into how to analyze and treat these data may, paradoxically, become more important.

Understanding Brains: Details, Intuition, and Big Data

OpenAIRE

Marder, Eve

2015-01-01

Understanding how the brain works requires a delicate balance between the appreciation of the importance of a multitude of biological details and the ability to see beyond those details to general principles. As technological innovations vastly increase the amount of data we collect, the importance of intuition into how to analyze and treat these data may, paradoxically, become more important.

Understanding brains: details, intuition, and big data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eve Marder

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Understanding how the brain works requires a delicate balance between the appreciation of the importance of a multitude of biological details and the ability to see beyond those details to general principles. As technological innovations vastly increase the amount of data we collect, the importance of intuition into how to analyze and treat these data may, paradoxically, become more important.

Cultural similarity and international trade in a panel of nations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E-G Hwang

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Using a gravity model and the data of a panel of eight nations, we present evidence that supports the views that geographical influence on trade had increased from 1985 to 1997. In both years, linguistic influence on trade is found to exist in export but not in import. The estimated results show a positive relation between religious similarity and international trade for the year 1985 but not for the year 1997. However, there is an indication that, for 1997, the religious dissimilarity tends to discourage international trade with low-income countries and regions and to encourage international trade with high-income countries. We also find that, for low-income trade partners, religious dissimilarity retards imports more than exports; by contrast, for high-income trade partners, it encourages exports more than imports.

Characterizing Density and Complexity of Imported Cargos

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Birrer, Nathaniel [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Divin, Charles [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Glenn, Steven [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Martz, Harry [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2017-08-01

X-ray inspection systems are used to detect radiological and nuclear threats in imported cargo. In order to better understand performance of these systems, system imaging capabilities and the characteristics of imported cargo need to be determined. This project involved calculation of the modulation transfer function as a metric of system imaging performance and a study of the density and inhomogeneity of imported cargos, which have been shown to correlate with human analysts, threat detection performance.

Understanding molecular simulation from algorithms to applications

CERN Document Server

Frenkel, Daan

2001-01-01

Understanding Molecular Simulation: From Algorithms to Applications explains the physics behind the ""recipes"" of molecular simulation for materials science. Computer simulators are continuously confronted with questions concerning the choice of a particular technique for a given application. A wide variety of tools exist, so the choice of technique requires a good understanding of the basic principles. More importantly, such understanding may greatly improve the efficiency of a simulation program. The implementation of simulation methods is illustrated in pseudocodes and their practic

State and Mafia, Differences and Similarities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alfano Vincenzo

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to investigate about the differences and, if any, the similarities among the modern State and the mafia criminal organizations. In particular, starting from their definitions, I will try to find the differences between State and mafia, to then focus on the operational aspects of the functioning of these two organizations, with specific reference to the effect/impact that both these human constructs have on citizens’ existences, and especially on citizen’s economic lives. All this in order to understand whether it is possible to identify an objective difference – beside morals – between taxation by the modern State and extortion by criminal organizations. With this of course I do not want to argue that the mafia is in any way justifiable or absolvable, nor that it is better than the State. However, I want to investigate whether there is a real, logical reason why the State should be considered by the citizens more desirable than the criminal organizations oppressing Southern Italy, from a strictly logical point of view and not from the point of view of ethics and morality.

Seafloor Eruptions Offer a Teachable Moment to Help SEAS Students Understand Important Geological and Ecological Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Goehring, L.; Williams, C. S.

2006-12-01

In education parlance, a teachable moment is an opportunity that arises when students are engaged and primed to learn, typically in response to some memorable event. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, even natural disasters, if meaningful to the student, often serve to catalyze intense learning. Recent eruptions at the East Pacific Rise offer a potential teachable moment for students and teachers involved with SEAS, a Ridge 2000 education outreach program. SEAS uses a combination of web-facilitated and teacher-directed activities to make the remote deep-sea environment and the process of science relevant and meaningful. SEAS is a web-based, inquiry-oriented education program for middle and high school students. It features the science associated with Ridge 2000 research. Since 2003, SEAS has focused on the integrated study site at the East Pacific Rise (EPR) to help students understand geological and ecological processes at mid-ocean ridges and hydrothermal vents. SEAS students study EPR bathymetry maps, images of lava formations, photomosaics of diffuse flow communities, succession in the Bio-Geo Transect, as well as current research conducted during spring cruises. In the Classroom to Sea Lab, students make direct comparisons between shallow-water mussels and vent mussels (from the EPR) to understand differences in feeding strategies. The recent eruptions and loss of seafloor fauna at this site offer the Ridge 2000 program the opportunity to help students better understand the ephemeral and episodic nature of ridge environments, as well as the realities and processes of science (particularly field science). In January 2007, the SEAS program will again sail with a Ridge 2000 research team, and will work with scientists to report findings through the SEAS website. The eruptions at the EPR covered much of the study site, and scientists' instruments and experiments, in fresh lava. We intend to highlight the recency and effect of the eruptions, using the students

Peroxisome protein import: a complex journey.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Alison; Lanyon-Hogg, Thomas; Warriner, Stuart L

2016-06-15

The import of proteins into peroxisomes possesses many unusual features such as the ability to import folded proteins, and a surprising diversity of targeting signals with differing affinities that can be recognized by the same receptor. As understanding of the structure and function of many components of the protein import machinery has grown, an increasingly complex network of factors affecting each step of the import pathway has emerged. Structural studies have revealed the presence of additional interactions between cargo proteins and the PEX5 receptor that affect import potential, with a subtle network of cargo-induced conformational changes in PEX5 being involved in the import process. Biochemical studies have also indicated an interdependence of receptor-cargo import with release of unloaded receptor from the peroxisome. Here, we provide an update on recent literature concerning mechanisms of protein import into peroxisomes. © 2016 The Author(s).

The Human Semicircular Canals Orientation Is More Similar to the Bonobos than to the Chimpanzees

Science.gov (United States)

El Khoury, Marwan; Braga, José; Dumoncel, Jean; Nancy, Javotte; Esclassan, Remi; Vaysse, Frederic

2014-01-01

For some traits, the human genome is more closely related to either the bonobo or the chimpanzee genome than they are to each other. Therefore, it becomes crucial to understand whether and how morphostructural differences between humans, chimpanzees and bonobos reflect the well known phylogeny. Here we comparatively investigated intra and extra labyrinthine semicircular canals orientation using 260 computed tomography scans of extant humans (Homo sapiens), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Humans and bonobos proved more similarities between themselves than with chimpanzees. This finding did not fit with the well established chimpanzee – bonobo monophyly. One hypothesis was convergent evolution in which bonobos and humans produce independently similar phenotypes possibly in response to similar selective pressures that may be associated with postural adaptations. Another possibility was convergence following a “random walk” (Brownian motion) evolutionary model. A more parsimonious explanation was that the bonobo-human labyrinthine shared morphology more closely retained the ancestral condition with chimpanzees being subsequently derived. Finally, these results might be a consequence of genetic diversity and incomplete lineage sorting. The remarkable symmetry of the Semicircular Canals was the second major finding of this article with possible applications in taphonomy. It has the potential to investigate altered fossils, inferring the probability of post-mortem deformation which can lead to difficulties in understanding taxonomic variation, phylogenetic relationships, and functional morphology. PMID:24710502

The human semicircular canals orientation is more similar to the bonobos than to the chimpanzees.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marwan El Khoury

Full Text Available For some traits, the human genome is more closely related to either the bonobo or the chimpanzee genome than they are to each other. Therefore, it becomes crucial to understand whether and how morphostructural differences between humans, chimpanzees and bonobos reflect the well known phylogeny. Here we comparatively investigated intra and extra labyrinthine semicircular canals orientation using 260 computed tomography scans of extant humans (Homo sapiens, bonobos (Pan paniscus and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes. Humans and bonobos proved more similarities between themselves than with chimpanzees. This finding did not fit with the well established chimpanzee - bonobo monophyly. One hypothesis was convergent evolution in which bonobos and humans produce independently similar phenotypes possibly in response to similar selective pressures that may be associated with postural adaptations. Another possibility was convergence following a "random walk" (Brownian motion evolutionary model. A more parsimonious explanation was that the bonobo-human labyrinthine shared morphology more closely retained the ancestral condition with chimpanzees being subsequently derived. Finally, these results might be a consequence of genetic diversity and incomplete lineage sorting. The remarkable symmetry of the Semicircular Canals was the second major finding of this article with possible applications in taphonomy. It has the potential to investigate altered fossils, inferring the probability of post-mortem deformation which can lead to difficulties in understanding taxonomic variation, phylogenetic relationships, and functional morphology.

The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Efferson, Charles; Lalive, Rafael; Cacault, Maria Paula; Kistler, Deborah

2016-01-01

Conformist social learning can have a pronounced impact on the cultural evolution of human societies, and it can shape both the genetic and cultural evolution of human social behavior more broadly. Conformist social learning is beneficial when the social learner and the demonstrators from whom she learns are similar in the sense that the same behavior is optimal for both. Otherwise, the social learner's optimum is likely to be rare among demonstrators, and conformity is costly. The trade-off between these two situations has figured prominently in the longstanding debate about the evolution of conformity, but the importance of the trade-off can depend critically on the flexibility of one's social learning strategy. We developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model that allows cognition to encode and process information about the similarity between naive learners and experienced demonstrators. Facultative social learning strategies that condition on perceived similarity evolve under certain circumstances. When this happens, facultative adjustments are often asymmetric. Asymmetric adjustments mean that the tendency to follow the majority when learners perceive demonstrators as similar is stronger than the tendency to follow the minority when learners perceive demonstrators as different. In an associated incentivized experiment, we found that social learners adjusted how they used social information based on perceived similarity, but adjustments were symmetric. The symmetry of adjustments completely eliminated the commonly assumed trade-off between cases in which learners and demonstrators share an optimum versus cases in which they do not. In a second experiment that maximized the potential for social learners to follow their preferred strategies, a few social learners exhibited an inclination to follow the majority. Most, however, did not respond systematically to social information. Additionally, in the complete absence of information about their similarity to

The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charles Efferson

Full Text Available Conformist social learning can have a pronounced impact on the cultural evolution of human societies, and it can shape both the genetic and cultural evolution of human social behavior more broadly. Conformist social learning is beneficial when the social learner and the demonstrators from whom she learns are similar in the sense that the same behavior is optimal for both. Otherwise, the social learner's optimum is likely to be rare among demonstrators, and conformity is costly. The trade-off between these two situations has figured prominently in the longstanding debate about the evolution of conformity, but the importance of the trade-off can depend critically on the flexibility of one's social learning strategy. We developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model that allows cognition to encode and process information about the similarity between naive learners and experienced demonstrators. Facultative social learning strategies that condition on perceived similarity evolve under certain circumstances. When this happens, facultative adjustments are often asymmetric. Asymmetric adjustments mean that the tendency to follow the majority when learners perceive demonstrators as similar is stronger than the tendency to follow the minority when learners perceive demonstrators as different. In an associated incentivized experiment, we found that social learners adjusted how they used social information based on perceived similarity, but adjustments were symmetric. The symmetry of adjustments completely eliminated the commonly assumed trade-off between cases in which learners and demonstrators share an optimum versus cases in which they do not. In a second experiment that maximized the potential for social learners to follow their preferred strategies, a few social learners exhibited an inclination to follow the majority. Most, however, did not respond systematically to social information. Additionally, in the complete absence of information about their

The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity

Science.gov (United States)

Efferson, Charles; Lalive, Rafael; Cacault, Maria Paula; Kistler, Deborah

2016-01-01

Conformist social learning can have a pronounced impact on the cultural evolution of human societies, and it can shape both the genetic and cultural evolution of human social behavior more broadly. Conformist social learning is beneficial when the social learner and the demonstrators from whom she learns are similar in the sense that the same behavior is optimal for both. Otherwise, the social learner’s optimum is likely to be rare among demonstrators, and conformity is costly. The trade-off between these two situations has figured prominently in the longstanding debate about the evolution of conformity, but the importance of the trade-off can depend critically on the flexibility of one’s social learning strategy. We developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model that allows cognition to encode and process information about the similarity between naive learners and experienced demonstrators. Facultative social learning strategies that condition on perceived similarity evolve under certain circumstances. When this happens, facultative adjustments are often asymmetric. Asymmetric adjustments mean that the tendency to follow the majority when learners perceive demonstrators as similar is stronger than the tendency to follow the minority when learners perceive demonstrators as different. In an associated incentivized experiment, we found that social learners adjusted how they used social information based on perceived similarity, but adjustments were symmetric. The symmetry of adjustments completely eliminated the commonly assumed trade-off between cases in which learners and demonstrators share an optimum versus cases in which they do not. In a second experiment that maximized the potential for social learners to follow their preferred strategies, a few social learners exhibited an inclination to follow the majority. Most, however, did not respond systematically to social information. Additionally, in the complete absence of information about their similarity to

Understanding map projections: Chapter 15

Science.gov (United States)

Usery, E. Lynn; Kent, Alexander J.; Vujakovic, Peter

2018-01-01

It has probably never been more important in the history of cartography than now that people understand how maps work. With increasing globalization, for example, world maps provide a key format for the transmission of information, but are often poorly used. Examples of poor understanding and use of projections and the resultant maps are many; for instance, the use of rectangular world maps in the United Kingdom press to show Chinese and Korean missile ranges as circles, something which can only be achieved on equidistant projections and then only from one launch point (Vujakovic, 2014).

Modeling Timbre Similarity of Short Music Clips.

Science.gov (United States)

Siedenburg, Kai; Müllensiefen, Daniel

2017-01-01

There is evidence from a number of recent studies that most listeners are able to extract information related to song identity, emotion, or genre from music excerpts with durations in the range of tenths of seconds. Because of these very short durations, timbre as a multifaceted auditory attribute appears as a plausible candidate for the type of features that listeners make use of when processing short music excerpts. However, the importance of timbre in listening tasks that involve short excerpts has not yet been demonstrated empirically. Hence, the goal of this study was to develop a method that allows to explore to what degree similarity judgments of short music clips can be modeled with low-level acoustic features related to timbre. We utilized the similarity data from two large samples of participants: Sample I was obtained via an online survey, used 16 clips of 400 ms length, and contained responses of 137,339 participants. Sample II was collected in a lab environment, used 16 clips of 800 ms length, and contained responses from 648 participants. Our model used two sets of audio features which included commonly used timbre descriptors and the well-known Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients as well as their temporal derivates. In order to predict pairwise similarities, the resulting distances between clips in terms of their audio features were used as predictor variables with partial least-squares regression. We found that a sparse selection of three to seven features from both descriptor sets-mainly encoding the coarse shape of the spectrum as well as spectrotemporal variability-best predicted similarities across the two sets of sounds. Notably, the inclusion of non-acoustic predictors of musical genre and record release date allowed much better generalization performance and explained up to 50% of shared variance ( R 2 ) between observations and model predictions. Overall, the results of this study empirically demonstrate that both acoustic features related

Improving Students' Understanding of Electricity and Magnetism

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jing

2012-01-01

Electricity and magnetism are important topics in physics. Research shows that students have many common difficulties in understanding concepts related to electricity and magnetism. However, research to improve students' understanding of electricity and magnetism is limited compared to introductory mechanics. This thesis explores issues…

Dynamic Time Warping Distance Method for Similarity Test of Multipoint Ground Motion Field

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yingmin Li

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The reasonability of artificial multi-point ground motions and the identification of abnormal records in seismic array observations, are two important issues in application and analysis of multi-point ground motion fields. Based on the dynamic time warping (DTW distance method, this paper discusses the application of similarity measurement in the similarity analysis of simulated multi-point ground motions and the actual seismic array records. Analysis results show that the DTW distance method not only can quantitatively reflect the similarity of simulated ground motion field, but also offers advantages in clustering analysis and singularity recognition of actual multi-point ground motion field.

Important wheelchair skills for new manual wheelchair users: health care professional and wheelchair user perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Kerri A; Engsberg, Jack R; Gray, David B

2017-01-01

The purpose of this project was to identify wheelchair skills currently being taught to new manual wheelchair users, identify areas of importance for manual wheelchair skills' training during initial rehabilitation, identify similarities and differences between the perspectives of health care professionals and manual wheelchair users and use the ICF to organize themes related to rehabilitation and learning how to use a manual wheelchair. Focus groups were conducted with health care professionals and experienced manual wheelchair users. ICF codes were used to identify focus group themes. The Activities and Participation codes were more frequently used than Structure, Function and Environment codes. Wheelchair skills identified as important for new manual wheelchair users included propulsion techniques, transfers in an out of the wheelchair, providing maintenance to the wheelchair and navigating barriers such as curbs, ramps and rough terrain. Health care professionals and manual wheelchair users identified the need to incorporate the environment (home and community) into the wheelchair training program. Identifying essential components for training the proper propulsion mechanics and wheelchair skills in new manual wheelchair users is an important step in preventing future health and participation restrictions. Implications for Rehabilitation Wheelchair skills are being addressed frequently during rehabilitation at the activity-dependent level. Propulsion techniques, transfers in an out of the wheelchair, providing maintenance to the wheelchair and navigating barriers such as curbs, ramps and rough terrain are important skills to address during wheelchair training. Environment factors (in the home and community) are important to incorporate into wheelchair training to maximize safe and multiple-environmental-setting uses of manual wheelchairs. The ICF has application to understanding manual wheelchair rehabilitation for wheelchair users and therapists for improving

KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTANDING AND ADVANCED SEARCHING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R Vidya

2017-04-01

Full Text Available It’s a comprehensive fact that millions of people around the world surf the Internet for want of answers for their questions. Generally, the questions are asked in the form of Searching or direct questions which follow perfect ontological directions. It is important that the system understands the questions in the right sense and can provide the best answer for all the questions raised in the web forum. One such pragmatic method is required which is expected to provide optimum solution to achieve best answers for questions that not only percepts language but also follows perfect ontological information in accordance with the cyber law. This Proposed Model presents a new dynamic model called Knowledge Understanding and Advance Searching (KUAS that studies the importance of Smart Question Answering with other question answering engines like START and proves to give the optimal solution compared to them.

Similarities and Differences of the Emerging Prison Problems in England and Wales vs. Kosovo: a Sociological and Criminological Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MSc. Arben Lubach

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Prisons are probably the most debatable institutions within the Criminal Justice System in any given country and as such demand contemporary explanation and understanding. Despite the fact that prisons affect the life of many people, not only of those incarcerated but also of their families and friends, nevertheless they do not receive the necessary attention; instead they remain the most enigmatic and less interesting organizations amongst the Criminal Justice System in general. This paper, by using a literature review approach, looks into some of the most important debates, similarities and differences respectively, about prisons in England and Wales, and Kosovo. Whilst most of the problems both countries face are of similar nature, Kosovo nevertheless faces some additional problems which are not visible in the England and Wales prisons. The paper further examines the causes of these problems in the Kosovo prisons and the involvement of the international community and their efforts in assisting Kosovo in fixing the problems in the field of corrections as part of the Kosovo state-building process. The paper will show that both countries face difficulties with similar problem areas such as overcrowding, running costs, and so on. However, compared to England and Wales, the problems Kosovo prison system is facing are of a more serious and complicated nature which require serious involvement of the Kosovo government and policy makers as well as the international community which has been present in Kosovo since 1999.

Tackling complexities in understanding the social determinants of health: the contribution of ethnographic research.

Science.gov (United States)

Bandyopadhyay, Mridula

2011-11-25

The complexities inherent in understanding the social determinants of health are often not well-served by quantitative approaches. My aim is to show that well-designed and well-conducted ethnographic studies have an important contribution to make in this regard. Ethnographic research designs are a difficult but rigorous approach to research questions that require us to understand the complexity of people's social and cultural lives. I draw on an ethnographic study to describe the complexities of studying maternal health in a rural area in India. I then show how the lessons learnt in that setting and context can be applied to studies done in very different settings. I show how ethnographic research depends for rigour on a theoretical framework for sample selection; why immersion in the community under study, and rapport building with research participants, is important to ensure rich and meaningful data; and how flexible approaches to data collection lead to the gradual emergence of an analysis based on intense cross-referencing with community views and thus a conclusion that explains the similarities and differences observed. When using ethnographic research design it can be difficult to specify in advance the exact details of the study design. Researchers can encounter issues in the field that require them to change what they planned on doing. In rigorous ethnographic studies, the researcher in the field is the research instrument and needs to be well trained in the method. Ethnographic research is challenging, but nevertheless provides a rewarding way of researching complex health problems that require an understanding of the social and cultural determinants of health.

Testing Self-Similarity Through Lamperti Transformations

KAUST Repository

Lee, Myoungji

2016-07-14

Self-similar processes have been widely used in modeling real-world phenomena occurring in environmetrics, network traffic, image processing, and stock pricing, to name but a few. The estimation of the degree of self-similarity has been studied extensively, while statistical tests for self-similarity are scarce and limited to processes indexed in one dimension. This paper proposes a statistical hypothesis test procedure for self-similarity of a stochastic process indexed in one dimension and multi-self-similarity for a random field indexed in higher dimensions. If self-similarity is not rejected, our test provides a set of estimated self-similarity indexes. The key is to test stationarity of the inverse Lamperti transformations of the process. The inverse Lamperti transformation of a self-similar process is a strongly stationary process, revealing a theoretical connection between the two processes. To demonstrate the capability of our test, we test self-similarity of fractional Brownian motions and sheets, their time deformations and mixtures with Gaussian white noise, and the generalized Cauchy family. We also apply the self-similarity test to real data: annual minimum water levels of the Nile River, network traffic records, and surface heights of food wrappings. © 2016, International Biometric Society.

Close encounters: Analyzing how social similarity and propinquity contribute to strong network connections.

OpenAIRE

Reagans, Ray Eugene

2010-01-01

Models of network formation emphasize the importance of social similarity and propinquity in producing strong interpersonal connections. The positive effect each factor can have on tie strength has been documented across a number of studies, and yet we know surprisingly very little about how the two factors combine to produce strong ties. Being in close proximity could either amplify or dampen the positive effect that social similarity can have on tie strength. Data on tie strength among teac...

History And Importance Of Graphic Design

OpenAIRE

Lyallya, Kirill

2016-01-01

This thesis is about history and importance of graphic design in different periods, from ancient times until today. The features inherent in different countries are considered. The techniques, basic methods for creating projects and computer software that designers have used are mentioned. In order to understand the importance of graphic design in our lives, it is considered from the side of ordinary people, how it manifests itself in daily lives and how it affects business. The thesis provid...

Contextual Factors for Finding Similar Experts

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hofmann, Katja; Balog, Krisztian; Bogers, Toine

2010-01-01

-seeking models, are rarely taken into account. In this article, we extend content-based expert-finding approaches with contextual factors that have been found to influence human expert finding. We focus on a task of science communicators in a knowledge-intensive environment, the task of finding similar experts......, given an example expert. Our approach combines expertise-seeking and retrieval research. First, we conduct a user study to identify contextual factors that may play a role in the studied task and environment. Then, we design expert retrieval models to capture these factors. We combine these with content......-based retrieval models and evaluate them in a retrieval experiment. Our main finding is that while content-based features are the most important, human participants also take contextual factors into account, such as media experience and organizational structure. We develop two principled ways of modeling...

Humor style similarity and difference in friendship dyads.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Simon C; Fox, Claire L; Jones, Siân E

2016-01-01

This study assessed the concurrent and prospective (fall to spring) associations between four different humor styles to assess the degree to which stable friendships are characterized by similarity, and to assess whether best friends' humor styles influence each other's later use of humor. Participants were aged 11-13 years, with 87 stable, reciprocal best friend dyads. Self-report assessments of humor styles were completed on both occasions. Results indicated that there was no initial similarity in dyads' levels of humor. However, dyads' use of humor that enhances interpersonal relationships (Affiliative humor) became positively correlated by spring. Additionally, young people's use of this humor style was positively associated with their best friend's later use of the same. No such effects were present for humor which was aggressive, denigrating toward the self, or used to enhance the self. These results have clear implications for theories of humor style development, highlighting an important role for Affiliative humor within stable friendship dyads. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Neighborhood-resources for the development of a strong SOC and the importance of understanding why and how resources work: a grounded theory approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Maass, Ruca; Lindström, Bengt; Lillefjell, Monica

2017-09-12

Providing individuals with psychosocial resources such as sense of coherence (SOC) seems a beneficial strategy for health promotion in the neighborhood. In order to become a supporting theory for health promotion, Salutogenesis should renew its focus on resources for health, and explore how the development of a strong SOC can be facilitated. Relevant issues were explored using a Grounded Theory- approach. Three focus-group-sessions and three in-depth interviews were conducted with strategically sampled participants. The transcripts of the focus groups were initially analyzed line-by-line to ensure that insights emerged from the data. We then applied focused and systemic analyses to achieve axial coding, and to include insights into how social interactions during focus groups may reveal social processes in real-life-neighborhoods. The data from the in-depth interviews were used to validate and fill emerging categories, as well as to ensure data-saturation. Findings indicate the importance of repeated experiences with resources and every-day-challenges to develop a strong SOC. Active engagement with resources is a favorable condition for significant experiences, which enhance the internalization of resources. Core experiences are characterized by a re-organization of resources. Participation in intellectual meaning-making through equal power dialogue seems to broaden perspectives and promote the strengthening of SOC. A strong SOC can also be described as a deeper understanding of how and why resources work, which allows for a more flexible use of resources, including replacing missing resources. A new understanding of SOC as an intuitive understanding of how, why and under which circumstances resources work, as well as a new focus on everyday life and repeated experiences might facilitate new approaches to a purposeful strengthening of SOC through the planning and implementation of public measures.

Transcriptional similarity in couples reveals the impact of shared environment and lifestyle on gene regulation through modified cytosines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ke Tang

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Gene expression is a complex and quantitative trait that is influenced by both genetic and non-genetic regulators including environmental factors. Evaluating the contribution of environment to gene expression regulation and identifying which genes are more likely to be influenced by environmental factors are important for understanding human complex traits. We hypothesize that by living together as couples, there can be commonly co-regulated genes that may reflect the shared living environment (e.g., diet, indoor air pollutants, behavioral lifestyle. The lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs derived from unrelated couples of African ancestry (YRI, Yoruba people from Ibadan, Nigeria from the International HapMap Project provided a unique model for us to characterize gene expression pattern in couples by comparing gene expression levels between husbands and wives. Strikingly, 778 genes were found to show much smaller variances in couples than random pairs of individuals at a false discovery rate (FDR of 5%. Since genetic variation between unrelated family members in a general population is expected to be the same assuming a random-mating society, non-genetic factors (e.g., epigenetic systems are more likely to be the mediators for the observed transcriptional similarity in couples. We thus evaluated the contribution of modified cytosines to those genes showing transcriptional similarity in couples as well as the relationships these CpG sites with other gene regulatory elements, such as transcription factor binding sites (TFBS. Our findings suggested that transcriptional similarity in couples likely reflected shared common environment partially mediated through cytosine modifications.

Training of tonal similarity ratings in non-musicians: a "rapid learning" approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Oechslin, Mathias S; Läge, Damian; Vitouch, Oliver

2012-01-01

Although cognitive music psychology has a long tradition of expert-novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based "rapid learning" paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, intended to display mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for learning research in music and other domains. Results are discussed in the context of the "giftedness" debate.

Training of tonal similarity ratings in non-musicians: a rapid learning approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mathias S Oechslin

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Although music psychology has a long tradition of expert-novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based rapid learning paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, aiming to map the mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS, which were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for music psychological research. Results are discussed in the context of the giftedness debate.

Belief Reasoning and Emotion Understanding in Balanced Bilingual and Language-Dominant Mexican American Young Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Weimer, Amy A; Gasquoine, Philip G

2016-01-01

Belief reasoning and emotion understanding were measured among 102 Mexican American bilingual children ranging from 4 to 7 years old. All children were tested in English and Spanish after ensuring minimum comprehension in each language. Belief reasoning was assessed using 2 false and 1 true belief tasks. Emotion understanding was measured using subtests from the Test for Emotion Comprehension. The influence of family background variables of yearly income, parental education level, and number of siblings on combined Spanish and English vocabulary, belief reasoning, and emotion understanding was assessed by regression analyses. Age and emotion understanding predicted belief reasoning. Vocabulary and belief reasoning predicted emotion understanding. When the sample was divided into language-dominant and balanced bilingual groups on the basis of language proficiency difference scores, there were no significant differences on belief reasoning or emotion understanding. Language groups were demographically similar with regard to child age, parental educational level, and family income. Results suggest Mexican American language-dominant and balanced bilinguals develop belief reasoning and emotion understanding similarly.

Native American Students' Understanding of Geologic Time Scale: 4th-8th Grade Ojibwe Students' Understanding of Earth's Geologic History

Science.gov (United States)

Nam, Younkyeong; Karahan, Engin; Roehrig, Gillian

2016-01-01

Geologic time scale is a very important concept for understanding long-term earth system events such as climate change. This study examines forty-three 4th-8th grade Native American--particularly Ojibwe tribe--students' understanding of relative ordering and absolute time of Earth's significant geological and biological events. This study also…

Using Models to Understand Sea Level Rise

Science.gov (United States)

Barth-Cohen, Lauren; Medina, Edwing

2017-01-01

Important science phenomena--such as atomic structure, evolution, and climate change--are often hard to observe directly. That's why an important scientific practice is to use scientific models to represent one's current understanding of a system. Using models has been included as an essential science and engineering practice in the "Next…

Understanding China’s Economic Success

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Xing

2016-01-01

This study attempts to provide a framework for understanding the role of the “embeddedness” in China’s economic success reflected by a unique embedded integration of state-market-society relations. “Embeddedness with Chinese characteristics” is the central concept of this study for analyzing how...... cultural and political uniqueness influences economic activities and shapes distinctive institutional forms. In order to grasp the factors behind the Chinese economic success, it is important to understand how the disembedded forces of marketization and commodification were balanced by the embedded forces...... context to explain and analyze the “embedded” hegemony in transitional China. The first part of the this paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding socio-cultural and political embeddedness in China and the second part analyzes some characteristics of the state-market-society embedded process...

Understanding Terrorism from an Economic perspective

OpenAIRE

Haldar, Tanushree

2013-01-01

Terrorism has emerged as a major threat to the contemporary society. Nation States are reliant on their counter-terrorism laws for checking terrorism and deterring terrorists. To understand the effectiveness of these counter terrorism laws, it is important to first understand the behaviour of terrorists, so as to comprehend what actions can dissuade terrorist’s behaviour and decision to propagate violence. This paper will first look at behaviour of terrorist in decision making from an economi...

Transformation in Interdisciplinary Research Methodology: The Importance of Shared Experiences in Landscapes of Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Jill; Laing, Karen; Leat, David; Lofthouse, Rachel; Thomas, Ulrike; Tiplady, Lucy; Woolner, Pamela

2017-01-01

Current debates around the concept of boundary crossing stress the importance of boundary objects in bringing people together to share understandings. We argue that the boundary object is of secondary importance, and that what is important for the transformational potential of interdisciplinary understanding is opportunities for "boundary…

What makes process models understandable?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mendling, J.; Reijers, H.A.; Cardoso, J.; Alonso, G.; Dadam, P.; Rosemann, M.

2007-01-01

Despite that formal and informal quality aspects are of significant importance to business process modeling, there is only little empirical work reported on process model quality and its impact factors. In this paper we investigate understandability as a proxy for quality of process models and focus

Story Perspective and Character Similarity as Drivers of Identification of Narrative Persuasion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoeken, J.A.L.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/111050359; Kolthoff, Matthijs; Sanders, José

2016-01-01

Identification with a character is an important mechanism of narrative persuasion. In 2 studies, the impact of character similarity on identification was pitted against that of story perspective. Participants read stories in which a lawyer (Study 1) and a general practitioner (GP; Study 2) had a

Gender similarities and differences in 200 individuals with body dysmorphic disorder⋆

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, Katharine A.; Menard, William; Fay, Christina

2006-01-01

Background Gender is a critically important moderator of psychopathology. However, gender similarities and differences in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) have received scant investigation. In this study, we examined gender similarities and differences in the broadest sample in which this topic has been examined. Methods Two hundred subjects with BDD recruited from diverse sources were assessed with a variety of standard measures. Results There were more similarities than differences between men and women, but many gender differences were found. The men were significantly older and more likely to be single and living alone. Men were more likely to obsess about their genitals, body build, and thinning hair/balding; excessively lift weights; and have a substance use disorder. In contrast, women were more likely to obsess about their skin, stomach, weight, breasts/chest, buttocks, thighs, legs, hips, toes, and excessive body/facial hair, and they were excessively concerned with more body areas. Women also performed more repetitive and safety behaviors, and were more likely to camouflage and use certain camouflaging techniques, check mirrors, change their clothes, pick their skin, and have an eating disorder. Women also had earlier onset of subclinical BDD symptoms and more severe BDD as assessed by the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Examination. However, men had more severe BDD as assessed by the Psychiatric Status Rating Scale for Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and they had poorer Global Assessment of Functioning Scale scores, were less likely to be working because of psychopathology, and were more likely to be receiving disability, including disability for BDD. Conclusions The clinical features of BDD in men and women have many similarities but also some interesting and important differences. These findings have implications for the detection and treatment of BDD. PMID:16490564

Picocyanobacteria and deep-ocean fluorescent dissolved organic matter share similar optical properties

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Zhao; Gonsior, Michael; Luek, Jenna; Timko, Stephen; Ianiri, Hope; Hertkorn, Norbert; Schmitt-Kopplin, Philippe; Fang, Xiaoting; Zeng, Qinglu; Jiao, Nianzhi; Chen, Feng

2017-05-01

Marine chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and its related fluorescent components (FDOM), which are widely distributed but highly photobleached in the surface ocean, are critical in regulating light attenuation in the ocean. However, the origins of marine FDOM are still under investigation. Here we show that cultured picocyanobacteria, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus, release FDOM that closely match the typical fluorescent signals found in oceanic environments. Picocyanobacterial FDOM also shows comparable apparent fluorescent quantum yields and undergoes similar photo-degradation behaviour when compared with deep-ocean FDOM, further strengthening the similarity between them. Ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy reveal abundant nitrogen-containing compounds in Synechococcus DOM, which may originate from degradation products of the fluorescent phycobilin pigments. Given the importance of picocyanobacteria in the global carbon cycle, our results indicate that picocyanobacteria are likely to be important sources of marine autochthonous FDOM, which may accumulate in the deep ocean.

Primary EBV infection induces an expression profile distinct from other viruses but similar to hemophagocytic syndromes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samantha K Dunmire

Full Text Available Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV causes infectious mononucleosis and establishes lifelong infection associated with cancer and autoimmune disease. To better understand immunity to EBV, we performed a prospective study of natural infection in healthy humans. Transcriptome analysis defined a striking and reproducible expression profile during acute infection but no lasting gene changes were apparent during latent infection. Comparing the EBV response profile to multiple other acute viral infections, including influenza A (influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV, human rhinovirus (HRV, attenuated yellow fever virus (YFV, and Dengue fever virus (DENV, revealed similarity only to DENV. The signature shared by EBV and DENV was also present in patients with hemophagocytic syndromes, suggesting these two viruses cause uncontrolled inflammatory responses. Interestingly, while EBV induced a strong type I interferon response, a subset of interferon induced genes, including MX1, HERC5, and OAS1, were not upregulated, suggesting a mechanism by which viral antagonism of immunity results in a profound inflammatory response. These data provide an important first description of the response to a natural herpesvirus infection in humans.

Primary EBV Infection Induces an Expression Profile Distinct from Other Viruses but Similar to Hemophagocytic Syndromes

Science.gov (United States)

Dunmire, Samantha K.; Odumade, Oludare A.; Porter, Jean L.; Reyes-Genere, Juan; Schmeling, David O.; Bilgic, Hatice; Fan, Danhua; Baechler, Emily C.; Balfour, Henry H.; Hogquist, Kristin A.

2014-01-01

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) causes infectious mononucleosis and establishes lifelong infection associated with cancer and autoimmune disease. To better understand immunity to EBV, we performed a prospective study of natural infection in healthy humans. Transcriptome analysis defined a striking and reproducible expression profile during acute infection but no lasting gene changes were apparent during latent infection. Comparing the EBV response profile to multiple other acute viral infections, including influenza A (influenza), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human rhinovirus (HRV), attenuated yellow fever virus (YFV), and Dengue fever virus (DENV), revealed similarity only to DENV. The signature shared by EBV and DENV was also present in patients with hemophagocytic syndromes, suggesting these two viruses cause uncontrolled inflammatory responses. Interestingly, while EBV induced a strong type I interferon response, a subset of interferon induced genes, including MX1, HERC5, and OAS1, were not upregulated, suggesting a mechanism by which viral antagonism of immunity results in a profound inflammatory response. These data provide an important first description of the response to a natural herpesvirus infection in humans. PMID:24465555

The Actor, Partner, Similarity Effects of Personality, and Interactions with Gender and Relationship Duration among Chinese Emerging Adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yixin Zhou

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Understanding personality effects and their role in influencing relationship quality, varied according to gender and relationship duration, could help us better understand close relationships. Participants were Chinese dating dyads and were asked to complete both the Big Five Inventory and Perceived Relationship Quality Component scales. Males and those who had a long-term relationship perceived better relationship quality; individuals who scored higher on agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability enjoyed better relationship quality; gender and/or relationship duration moderated the actor effect of extraversion and the partner effects of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness on relationship quality. Regarding the profile similarity, those couples who were more dissimilar in their profile personality had better relationship quality, especially when they were in a relatively long-term relationship. Meanwhile, with an increase in profile similarity, the males' perceived relationship quality decreased.

Research philosophy: towards an understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Crossan, Frank

2003-01-01

In this paper, Frank Crossan argues that the distinction between quantitative and qualitative philosophies and research methods is sometimes overstated, and that triangulation of methods in contemporary research is common. It is, therefore, important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and this paper aims to provide the novice researcher with a basis for developing that understanding. A descriptive analysis of the philosophies of positivism and post-positivist thinking in relation to research methodology is presented both as an introduction to the philosophical basis of research, and as a sound basis from which to discuss the 'quantitative-qualitative' debate.

Similarity in Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents’ Friendship Dyads: Selection or Socialization?

Science.gov (United States)

Giletta, Matteo; Scholte, Ron H. J.; Burk, William J.; Engels, Rutger C. M. E.; Larsen, Junilla K.; Prinstein, Mitchell J.; Ciairano, Silvia

2012-01-01

This study examined friendship selection and socialization as mechanisms explaining similarity in depressive symptoms in adolescent same-gender best friend dyads. The sample consisted of 1,752 adolescents (51% male) ages 12–16 years (M = 13.77, SD = 0.73) forming 487 friend dyads and 389 nonfriend dyads (the nonfriend dyads served as a comparison group). To test our hypothesis, we applied a multigroup actor–partner interdependence model to 3 friendship types that started and ended at different time points during the 2 waves of data collection. Results showed that adolescents reported levels of depressive symptoms at follow-up that were similar to those of their best friends. Socialization processes explained the increase in similarity exclusively in female dyads, whereas no evidence for friendship selection emerged for either male or female dyads. Additional analyses revealed that similarity between friends was particularly evident in the actual best friend dyads (i.e., true best friends), in which evidence for socialization processes emerged for both female and male friend dyads. Findings highlight the importance of examining friendship relations as a potential context for the development of depressive symptoms. PMID:21639621

Attention-based image similarity measure with application to content-based information retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Stentiford, Fred W. M.

2003-01-01

Whilst storage and capture technologies are able to cope with huge numbers of images, image retrieval is in danger of rendering many repositories valueless because of the difficulty of access. This paper proposes a similarity measure that imposes only very weak assumptions on the nature of the features used in the recognition process. This approach does not make use of a pre-defined set of feature measurements which are extracted from a query image and used to match those from database images, but instead generates features on a trial and error basis during the calculation of the similarity measure. This has the significant advantage that features that determine similarity can match whatever image property is important in a particular region whether it be a shape, a texture, a colour or a combination of all three. It means that effort is expended searching for the best feature for the region rather than expecting that a fixed feature set will perform optimally over the whole area of an image and over every image in a database. The similarity measure is evaluated on a problem of distinguishing similar shapes in sets of black and white symbols.

HTRA1 variant confers similar risks to geographic atrophy and neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Cameron, D Joshua; Yang, Zhenglin; Gibbs, Daniel; Chen, Haoyu; Kaminoh, Yuuki; Jorgensen, Adam; Zeng, Jiexi; Luo, Ling; Brinton, Eric; Brinton, Gregory; Brand, John M; Bernstein, Paul S; Zabriskie, Norman A; Tang, Shibo; Constantine, Ryan; Tong, Zongzhong; Zhang, Kang

2007-05-02

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of irreversible visual impairment in the developed world. The two forms of advanced AMD, geographic atrophy (GA) and choroidal neovascularization (wet AMD), represent two types of degenerative processes in the macula that lead to loss of central vision. Soft confluent drusen, characterized by deposits in macula without visual loss are considered a precursor of advanced AMD. A single nucleotide polymorphism, rs11200638, in the promoter of HTRA1 has been shown to increases the risk for wet AMD. However, its impact on soft confluent drusen and GA or the relationship between them is unclear. To better understand the role the HTRA1 polymorphism plays in AMD subtypes, we genotyped an expanded Utah population with 658 patients having advanced AMD or soft confluent drusen and 294 normal controls and found that the rs11200638 was significantly associated with GA. This association remains significant conditional on LOC387715 rs10490924. In addition, rs11200638 was significantly associated with soft confluent drusen, which are strongly immunolabeled with HTRA1 antibody in an AMD eye with GA similar to wet AMD. Two-locus analyses were performed for CFH Y402H variant at 1q31 and the HTRA1 polymorphism. Together CFH and HTRA1 risk variants increase the odds of having AMD by more than 40 times. These findings expand the role of HTRA1 in AMD. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanism will provide an important insight in pathogenesis of AMD.

The Impotence of Being Important – Reflections on Leadership

Science.gov (United States)

Couper, Ian Douglas

2007-01-01

An observed doctor-patient encounter, in which impotence and importance were confused, led me to a reflection on leadership. A sense of importance can be destructive in leadership, leading to failure to perform, or impotence. Understanding the dangers of self-importance, I am challenged to ensure that I regularly reflect on my leadership style. PMID:17548855

Run-up of tsunamis and long waves in terms of surf-similarity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Per A.; Fuhrman, David R.

2008-01-01

of the surf-similarity parameter and the amplitude to depth ratio determined at some offshore location. We use the analytical expressions to analyze the impact of tsunamis on beaches and relate the discussion to the recent Indian Ocean tsunami from December 26, 2004. An important conclusion is that extreme...... run-up combined with extreme flow velocities occurs for surf-similarity parameters of the order 3-6, and for typical tsunami wave periods this requires relatively mild beach slopes. Next, we compare the theoretical solutions to measured run-up of breaking and non-breaking irregular waves on steep...

Agriculturally important microbial biofilms: Present status and future prospects.

Science.gov (United States)

Velmourougane, Kulandaivelu; Prasanna, Radha; Saxena, Anil Kumar

2017-07-01

Microbial biofilms are a fascinating subject, due to their significant roles in the environment, industry, and health. Advances in biochemical and molecular techniques have helped in enhancing our understanding of biofilm structure and development. In the past, research on biofilms primarily focussed on health and industrial sectors; however, lately, biofilms in agriculture are gaining attention due to their immense potential in crop production, protection, and improvement. Biofilms play an important role in colonization of surfaces - soil, roots, or shoots of plants and enable proliferation in the desired niche, besides enhancing soil fertility. Although reports are available on microbial biofilms in general; scanty information is published on biofilm formation by agriculturally important microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, bacterial-fungal) and their interactions in the ecosystem. Better understanding of agriculturally important bacterial-fungal communities and their interactions can have several implications on climate change, soil quality, plant nutrition, plant protection, bioremediation, etc. Understanding the factors and genes involved in biofilm formation will help to develop more effective strategies for sustainable and environment-friendly agriculture. The present review brings together fundamental aspects of biofilms, in relation to their formation, regulatory mechanisms, genes involved, and their application in different fields, with special emphasis on agriculturally important microbial biofilms. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Religions Constructed as Similar or Different by Teachers of Religious Education from a Citizenship Education Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Liljestrand, Johan

2015-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore and theoretically discuss Swedish religious studies (RE) teachers' understanding of religions as similar and different. In Sweden, RE is a mandatory subject and presents all the world's major religions to students. Teachers of RE therefore need to relate to the various relations between the…

Understanding the Importance of Urban Amenities: A Case Study from Auckland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalie Allen

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Along with many Pacific Rim cities in Australia and North America, Auckland, New Zealand has enacted an urban growth management strategy premised on two concepts: “liveability” and a “quality compact city”. The effective implementation of this strategy will, in part, require higher density housing typologies to be developed within the existing suburban fabric. The urban amenities in a neighbourhood play an important role in providing a sense of liveability for residents. This paper examines these issues by evaluating and reporting on key outcomes from 57 face-to-face qualitative interviews with residents who currently live in medium density housing in four Auckland suburbs; Takapuna, Kingsland, Botany Downs, and Te Atatu Peninsula. Findings consider the trade-offs residents make when choosing to live in medium density housing typologies, how they value the urban amenities in their neighbourhood and the role they think these amenities play in their location satisfaction. Conclusions are drawn around how the resident-derived information may inform the market on the supply side of housing, and comment is made about how these preferences may, or may not, respond to the objectives of the underlying urban management strategies involved.

Coal and Oil: The Dark Monarchs of Global Energy: Understanding Supply and Extraction Patterns and their Importance for Future Production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoeoek, Mikael

2010-01-01

The formation of modern society has been dominated by coal and oil, and together these two fossil fuels account for nearly two thirds of all primary energy used by mankind. This makes future production a key question for future social development and this thesis attempts to answer whether it is possible to rely on an assumption of ever increasing production of coal and oil. Both coal and oil are finite resources, created over long time scales by geological processes. It is thus impossible to extract more fossil fuels than geologically available. In other words, there are limits to growth imposed by nature. The concept of depletion and exhaustion of recoverable resources is a fundamental question for the future extraction of coal and oil. Historical experience shows that peaking is a well established phenomenon in production of various natural resources. Coal and oil are no exceptions, and historical data shows that easily exploitable resources are exhausted while more challenging deposits are left for the future. For oil, depletion can also be tied directly to the physical laws governing fluid flows in reservoirs. Understanding and predicting behaviour of individual fields, in particularly giant fields, are essential for understanding future production. Based on comprehensive databases with reserve and production data for hundreds of oilfields, typical patterns were found. Alternatively, depletion can manifest itself indirectly through various mechanisms. This has been studied for coal. Over 60% of the global crude oil production is derived from only around 330 giant oilfields, where many of them are becoming increasingly mature. The annual decline in existing oil production has been determined to be around 6% and it is unrealistic that this will be offset by new field developments, additional discoveries or unconventional oil. This implies that the peak of the oil age is here. For coal a similar picture emerges, where 90% of the global coal production originates

Domain similarity based orthology detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Bitard-Feildel, Tristan; Kemena, Carsten; Greenwood, Jenny M; Bornberg-Bauer, Erich

2015-05-13

Orthologous protein detection software mostly uses pairwise comparisons of amino-acid sequences to assert whether two proteins are orthologous or not. Accordingly, when the number of sequences for comparison increases, the number of comparisons to compute grows in a quadratic order. A current challenge of bioinformatic research, especially when taking into account the increasing number of sequenced organisms available, is to make this ever-growing number of comparisons computationally feasible in a reasonable amount of time. We propose to speed up the detection of orthologous proteins by using strings of domains to characterize the proteins. We present two new protein similarity measures, a cosine and a maximal weight matching score based on domain content similarity, and new software, named porthoDom. The qualities of the cosine and the maximal weight matching similarity measures are compared against curated datasets. The measures show that domain content similarities are able to correctly group proteins into their families. Accordingly, the cosine similarity measure is used inside porthoDom, the wrapper developed for proteinortho. porthoDom makes use of domain content similarity measures to group proteins together before searching for orthologs. By using domains instead of amino acid sequences, the reduction of the search space decreases the computational complexity of an all-against-all sequence comparison. We demonstrate that representing and comparing proteins as strings of discrete domains, i.e. as a concatenation of their unique identifiers, allows a drastic simplification of search space. porthoDom has the advantage of speeding up orthology detection while maintaining a degree of accuracy similar to proteinortho. The implementation of porthoDom is released using python and C++ languages and is available under the GNU GPL licence 3 at http://www.bornberglab.org/pages/porthoda .

Is Overeating Behavior Similar to Drug Addiction? (427th Brookhaven Lecture)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Gene-Jack

2007-09-27

The increasing number of obese individuals in the U.S. and other countries world-wide adds urgency to the need to understand the mechanisms underlying pathological overeating. Research by the speaker and others at Brookhaven National Laboratory and elsewhere is compiling evidence that the brain circuits disrupted in obesity are similar to those involved in drug addiction. Using positron emission tomography (PET), the speaker and his colleagues have implicated brain dopamine in the normal and the pathological intake of food by humans. During the 427th Brookhaven Lecture, speaker will review the findings and implications of PET studies of obese subjects and then compare them to PET research involving drug-addicted individuals. For example, in pathologically obese subjects, it was found that reductions in striatal dopamine D2 receptors are similar to those observed in drug-addicted subjects. The speaker and his colleagues have postulated that decreased levels of dopamine receptors predisposed subjects to search for strongly rewarding reinforcers, be it drugs for the drug-addicted or food for the obese, as a means to compensate for decreased sensitivity of their dopamine-regulated reward circuits. As the speaker will summarize, multiple but similar brain circuits involved in reward, motivation, learning and inhibitory control are disrupted both in drug addiction and obesity, resulting in the need for a multimodal approach to the treatment of obesity.

Is Overeating Behavior Similar to Drug Addiction? (427th Brookhaven Lecture)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Gene-Jack

2007-01-01

The increasing number of obese individuals in the U.S. and other countries world-wide adds urgency to the need to understand the mechanisms underlying pathological overeating. Research by the speaker and others at Brookhaven National Laboratory and elsewhere is compiling evidence that the brain circuits disrupted in obesity are similar to those involved in drug addiction. Using positron emission tomography (PET), the speaker and his colleagues have implicated brain dopamine in the normal and the pathological intake of food by humans. During the 427th Brookhaven Lecture, speaker will review the findings and implications of PET studies of obese subjects and then compare them to PET research involving drug-addicted individuals. For example, in pathologically obese subjects, it was found that reductions in striatal dopamine D2 receptors are similar to those observed in drug-addicted subjects. The speaker and his colleagues have postulated that decreased levels of dopamine receptors predisposed subjects to search for strongly rewarding reinforcers, be it drugs for the drug-addicted or food for the obese, as a means to compensate for decreased sensitivity of their dopamine-regulated reward circuits. As the speaker will summarize, multiple but similar brain circuits involved in reward, motivation, learning and inhibitory control are disrupted both in drug addiction and obesity, resulting in the need for a multimodal approach to the treatment of obesity.

Graduate Employability: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Employers' Perceptions

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Yuzhuo

2013-01-01

This study provides a conceptual framework for understanding what employers think about the value of graduates with similar educational credentials in the workplace (their employability), using insights from the new institutionalism. In this framework, the development of employers' beliefs about graduates' employability is broken into a number of…

Revolutionizing Our Understanding of AGN Feedback and its Importance to Galaxy Evolution in the Era of the Next Generation Very Large Array

Science.gov (United States)

Nyland, K.; Harwood, J. J.; Mukherjee, D.; Jagannathan, P.; Rujopakarn, W.; Emonts, B.; Alatalo, K.; Bicknell, G. V.; Davis, T. A.; Greene, J. E.; Kimball, A.; Lacy, M.; Lonsdale, Carol; Lonsdale, Colin; Maksym, W. P.; Molnár, D. C.; Morabito, L.; Murphy, E. J.; Patil, P.; Prandoni, I.; Sargent, M.; Vlahakis, C.

2018-05-01

Energetic feedback by active galactic nuclei (AGNs) plays an important evolutionary role in the regulation of star formation on galactic scales. However, the effects of this feedback as a function of redshift and galaxy properties such as mass, environment, and cold gas content remain poorly understood. The broad frequency coverage (1 to 116 GHz), high sensitivity (up to ten times higher than the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array), and superb angular resolution (maximum baselines of at least a few hundred kilometers) of the proposed next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) are uniquely poised to revolutionize our understanding of AGNs and their role in galaxy evolution. Here, we provide an overview of the science related to AGN feedback that will be possible in the ngVLA era and present new continuum ngVLA imaging simulations of resolved radio jets spanning a wide range of intrinsic extents. We also consider key computational challenges and discuss exciting opportunities for multiwavelength synergy with other next-generation instruments, such as the Square Kilometer Array and the James Webb Space Telescope. The unique combination of high-resolution, large collecting area, and wide frequency range will enable significant advancements in our understanding of the effects of jet-driven feedback on sub-galactic scales, particularly for sources with extents of a few parsec to a few kiloparsec, such as young and/or lower-power radio AGNs, AGNs hosted by low-mass galaxies, radio jets that are interacting strongly with the interstellar medium of the host galaxy, and AGNs at high redshift.

FRESCO: Referential compression of highly similar sequences.

Science.gov (United States)

Wandelt, Sebastian; Leser, Ulf

2013-01-01

In many applications, sets of similar texts or sequences are of high importance. Prominent examples are revision histories of documents or genomic sequences. Modern high-throughput sequencing technologies are able to generate DNA sequences at an ever-increasing rate. In parallel to the decreasing experimental time and cost necessary to produce DNA sequences, computational requirements for analysis and storage of the sequences are steeply increasing. Compression is a key technology to deal with this challenge. Recently, referential compression schemes, storing only the differences between a to-be-compressed input and a known reference sequence, gained a lot of interest in this field. In this paper, we propose a general open-source framework to compress large amounts of biological sequence data called Framework for REferential Sequence COmpression (FRESCO). Our basic compression algorithm is shown to be one to two orders of magnitudes faster than comparable related work, while achieving similar compression ratios. We also propose several techniques to further increase compression ratios, while still retaining the advantage in speed: 1) selecting a good reference sequence; and 2) rewriting a reference sequence to allow for better compression. In addition,we propose a new way of further boosting the compression ratios by applying referential compression to already referentially compressed files (second-order compression). This technique allows for compression ratios way beyond state of the art, for instance,4,000:1 and higher for human genomes. We evaluate our algorithms on a large data set from three different species (more than 1,000 genomes, more than 3 TB) and on a collection of versions of Wikipedia pages. Our results show that real-time compression of highly similar sequences at high compression ratios is possible on modern hardware.

Measuring transferring similarity via local information

Science.gov (United States)

Yin, Likang; Deng, Yong

2018-05-01

Recommender systems have developed along with the web science, and how to measure the similarity between users is crucial for processing collaborative filtering recommendation. Many efficient models have been proposed (i.g., the Pearson coefficient) to measure the direct correlation. However, the direct correlation measures are greatly affected by the sparsity of dataset. In other words, the direct correlation measures would present an inauthentic similarity if two users have a very few commonly selected objects. Transferring similarity overcomes this drawback by considering their common neighbors (i.e., the intermediates). Yet, the transferring similarity also has its drawback since it can only provide the interval of similarity. To break the limitations, we propose the Belief Transferring Similarity (BTS) model. The contributions of BTS model are: (1) BTS model addresses the issue of the sparsity of dataset by considering the high-order similarity. (2) BTS model transforms uncertain interval to a certain state based on fuzzy systems theory. (3) BTS model is able to combine the transferring similarity of different intermediates using information fusion method. Finally, we compare BTS models with nine different link prediction methods in nine different networks, and we also illustrate the convergence property and efficiency of the BTS model.

Spatial scale of similarity as an indicator of metacommunity stability in exploited marine systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Shackell, Nancy L; Fisher, Jonathan A D; Frank, Kenneth T; Lawton, Peter

2012-01-01

The spatial scale of similarity among fish communities is characteristically large in temperate marine systems: connectivity is enhanced by high rates of dispersal during the larval/juvenile stages and the increased mobility of large-bodied fish. A larger spatial scale of similarity (low beta diversity) is advantageous in heavily exploited systems because locally depleted populations are more likely to be "rescued" by neighboring areas. We explored whether the spatial scale of similarity changed from 1970 to 2006 due to overfishing of dominant, large-bodied groundfish across a 300 000-km2 region of the Northwest Atlantic. Annually, similarities among communities decayed slowly with increasing geographic distance in this open system, but through time the decorrelation distance declined by 33%, concomitant with widespread reductions in biomass, body size, and community evenness. The decline in connectivity stemmed from an erosion of community similarity among local subregions separated by distances as small as 100 km. Larger fish, of the same species, contribute proportionally more viable offspring, so observed body size reductions will have affected maternal output. The cumulative effect of nonlinear maternal influences on egg/larval quality may have compromised the spatial scale of effective larval dispersal, which may account for the delayed recovery of certain member species. Our study adds strong support for using the spatial scale of similarity as an indicator of metacommunity stability both to understand the spatial impacts of exploitation and to refine how spatial structure is used in management plans.

Understand after Like, viewer’s delight

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pelowski, Matthew John

with attention/self-related assessment and integration of hedonic and informational elements. Findings provide tentative support for a hedonic-driven order effect, raise important implications regarding biological connection between liking/understanding and suggest need for further such consideration...

Development of similarity theory for control systems

Science.gov (United States)

Myshlyaev, L. P.; Evtushenko, V. F.; Ivushkin, K. A.; Makarov, G. V.

2018-05-01

The area of effective application of the traditional similarity theory and the need necessity of its development for systems are discussed. The main statements underlying the similarity theory of control systems are given. The conditions for the similarity of control systems and the need for similarity control control are formulated. Methods and algorithms for estimating and similarity control of control systems and the results of research of control systems based on their similarity are presented. The similarity control of systems includes the current evaluation of the degree of similarity of control systems and the development of actions controlling similarity, and the corresponding targeted change in the state of any element of control systems.

Understanding Behaviors in Videos through Behavior-Specific Dictionaries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ren, Huamin; Liu, Weifeng; Olsen, Søren Ingvor

2018-01-01

Understanding behaviors is the core of video content analysis, which is highly related to two important applications: abnormal event detection and action recognition. Dictionary learning, as one of the mid-level representations, is an important step to process a video. It has achieved state...

Families that fire together smile together: Resting state connectome similarity and daily emotional synchrony in parent-child dyads.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Tae-Ho; Miernicki, Michelle E; Telzer, Eva H

2017-05-15

Despite emerging evidence suggesting a biological basis to our social tiles, our understanding of the neural processes which link two minds is unknown. We implemented a novel approach, which included connectome similarity analysis using resting state intrinsic networks of parent-child dyads as well as daily diaries measured across 14 days. Intrinsic resting-state networks for both parents and their adolescent child were identified using independent component analysis (ICA). Results indicate that parents and children who had more similar RSN connectome also had more similar day-to-day emotional synchrony. Furthermore, dyadic RSN connectome similarity was associated with children's emotional competence, suggesting that being neurally in-tune with their parents confers emotional benefits. We provide the first evidence that dyadic RSN similarity is associated with emotional synchrony in what is often our first and most essential social bond, the parent-child relationship. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Community-Engaged Scholarship: Toward a Shared Understanding of Practice

Science.gov (United States)

da Cruz, Cynthia Gordon

2018-01-01

Community-engaged scholarship (CES) is frequently recommended as a postsecondary practice for producing knowledge to address real-world issues and support the public good. But CES has multiple meanings, and understandings overlap with similar terms, such as publicly engaged scholarship. I draw upon recommendations in the field to propose an…

Philosophy of phenomenology: how understanding aids research.

Science.gov (United States)

Converse, Mary

2012-01-01

To assist the researcher in understanding the similarities and differences between the Husserlian and Heideggerian philosophies of phenomenology, and how that philosophy can inform nursing research as a useful methodology. Nurse researchers using phenomenology as a methodology need to understand the philosophy of phenomenology to produce a research design that is philosophically congruent. However, phenomenology has a long and complex history of development, and may be difficult to understand and apply. The author draws from Heidegger (1962), Gadamer (2004), and nurse scholars and methodologists. To give the reader a sense of the development of the philosophy of phenomenology, the author briefly recounts its historical origins and interpretations, specifically related to Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer. The author outlines the ontological and epistemological assumptions of Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology and guidance for methodology inspired by these philosophers. Difficulties with engaging in phenomenological research are addressed, especially the processes of phenomenological reduction and bracketing, and the lack of clarity about the methods of interpretation. Despite its complexity, phenomenology can provide the nurse researcher with indepth insight into nursing practice. An understanding of phenomenology can guide nurse researchers to produce results that have meaning in nursing patient care.

Children's Developing Understanding of Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Mawson, Brent

2010-01-01

The issue of children's conceptions of technology and technology education is seen as important by technology educators. While there is a solid body of literature that documents groups of children's understandings of technology and technology education, this is primarily focused on snapshot studies of children aged 11 and above. There is little…

The Importance of Background Culture Knowledge in Reading

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王蓁

2012-01-01

As achieving cross-culture communication is the final aim of learning English,it turns out to be inefficient to attach more importance on the ability of listening,speaking,reading,writing and knowledge system.Background culture knowledge is supposed to be an important way to reach the aim of language teaching,and help readers understand articles.Considering the effects of background culture knowledge and its importance,this article will do a research on it and try to help both readers and teachers aware of the importance of background culture knowledge and take note of it.

Similarity Structure of Wave-Collapse

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rypdal, Kristoffer; Juul Rasmussen, Jens; Thomsen, Kenneth

1985-01-01

Similarity transformations of the cubic Schrödinger equation (CSE) are investigated. The transformations are used to remove the explicit time variation in the CSE and reduce it to differential equations in the spatial variables only. Two different methods for similarity reduction are employed and...

Children's Understanding of the Addition/Subtraction Complement Principle

Science.gov (United States)

Torbeyns, Joke; Peters, Greet; De Smedt, Bert; Ghesquière, Pol; Verschaffel, Lieven

2016-01-01

Background: In the last decades, children's understanding of mathematical principles has become an important research topic. Different from the commutativity and inversion principles, only few studies have focused on children's understanding of the addition/subtraction complement principle (if a - b = c, then c + b = a), mainly relying on verbal…

The Significance of Blackstone's Understanding of Sovereign Immunity for America's Public Institutions of Higher Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Snow, Brian A.; Thro, William E.

2001-01-01

Asserts that from the perspective of America's public institutions of higher education, Blackstone's greatest legacy is his understanding of sovereign immunity. Explores the similarities between Blackstone's understanding of sovereign immunity and the current jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court. (EV)

The Educational Importance of Self-Esteem

Science.gov (United States)

Ferkany, Matt

2008-01-01

Some philosophers of education have recently argued that educators can more or less ignore children's global self-esteem without failing them educationally in any important way. This paper draws on an attachment theoretic account of self-esteem to argue that this view is mistaken. I argue that understanding self-esteem's origins in attachment…

'Y' feel me?' How do we understand the person with dementia?

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Julian C

2013-05-01

As dementia progresses problems of understanding emerge. Eventually spoken language can be lost. And yet, even into the severer stages of dementia, close carers can often understand the person in a variety of ways. Loss of language is not just a practical problem. It raises philosophical issues too. As Wittgenstein suggested, understanding entails grasping a form of life. Our understanding of agitated, pacing behaviour is similarly based on a unique history, on culture, on context. Hence, a philosophy gestures at the foundations of care. There is the potential to feel the person's meaning, even when it cannot be spoken. This is not simply by means of an alternative to language. The philosophy suggests that our engagement with the person is through and through. Understanding anyone is more like an aesthetic judgement than a cognitive act.

Similar or different? The role of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in similarity detection.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Béatrice Garcin

Full Text Available Patients with frontal lobe syndrome can exhibit two types of abnormal behaviour when asked to place a banana and an orange in a single category: some patients categorize them at a concrete level (e.g., "both have peel", while others continue to look for differences between these objects (e.g., "one is yellow, the other is orange". These observations raise the question of whether abstraction and similarity detection are distinct processes involved in abstract categorization, and that depend on separate areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC. We designed an original experimental paradigm for a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study involving healthy subjects, confirming the existence of two distinct processes relying on different prefrontal areas, and thus explaining the behavioural dissociation in frontal lesion patients. We showed that: 1 Similarity detection involves the anterior ventrolateral PFC bilaterally with a right-left asymmetry: the right anterior ventrolateral PFC is only engaged in detecting physical similarities; 2 Abstraction per se activates the left dorsolateral PFC.

Understanding Time-driven Activity-based Costing.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharan, Alok D; Schroeder, Gregory D; West, Michael E; Vaccaro, Alexander R

2016-03-01

Transitioning to a value-based health care system will require providers to increasingly scrutinize their outcomes and costs. Although there has been a great deal of effort to understand outcomes, cost accounting in health care has been a greater challenge. Currently the cost accounting methods used by hospitals and providers are based off a fee-for-service system. As resources become increasingly scarce and the health care system attempts to understand which services provide the greatest value, it will be critically important to understand the true costs of delivering a service. An understanding of the true costs of a particular service will help providers make smarter decisions on how to allocate and utilize resources as well as determine which activities are nonvalue added. Achieving value will require providers to have a greater focus on accurate outcome data as well as better methods of cost accounting.

Computing the variations in the self-similar properties of the various gait intervals in Parkinson disease patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Manjeri Keloth, Sana; Arjunan, Sridhar P; Kumar, Dinesh

2017-07-01

This study has investigated the stride, swing, stance and double support intervals of gait for Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with different levels of severity. Self-similar properties of the gait signal were analyzed to investigate the changes in the gait pattern of the healthy and PD patients. To understand the self-similar property, detrended fluctuation analysis was performed. The analysis shows that the PD patients have less defined gait when compared to healthy. The study also shows that among the stance and swing phase of stride interval, the self-similarity is less for swing interval when compared to the stance interval of gait and decreases with the severity of gait. Also, PD patients show decreased self-similar patterns in double support interval of gait. This suggest that there are less rhythmic gait intervals and a sense of urgency to remain in support phase of gait by the PD patients.

Multicriteria Similarity-Based Anomaly Detection Using Pareto Depth Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsiao, Ko-Jen; Xu, Kevin S; Calder, Jeff; Hero, Alfred O

2016-06-01

We consider the problem of identifying patterns in a data set that exhibits anomalous behavior, often referred to as anomaly detection. Similarity-based anomaly detection algorithms detect abnormally large amounts of similarity or dissimilarity, e.g., as measured by the nearest neighbor Euclidean distances between a test sample and the training samples. In many application domains, there may not exist a single dissimilarity measure that captures all possible anomalous patterns. In such cases, multiple dissimilarity measures can be defined, including nonmetric measures, and one can test for anomalies by scalarizing using a nonnegative linear combination of them. If the relative importance of the different dissimilarity measures are not known in advance, as in many anomaly detection applications, the anomaly detection algorithm may need to be executed multiple times with different choices of weights in the linear combination. In this paper, we propose a method for similarity-based anomaly detection using a novel multicriteria dissimilarity measure, the Pareto depth. The proposed Pareto depth analysis (PDA) anomaly detection algorithm uses the concept of Pareto optimality to detect anomalies under multiple criteria without having to run an algorithm multiple times with different choices of weights. The proposed PDA approach is provably better than using linear combinations of the criteria, and shows superior performance on experiments with synthetic and real data sets.

Analysis of metal forming processes by using physical modeling and new plastic similarity condition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gronostajski, Z.; Hawryluk, M.

2007-01-01

In recent years many advances have been made in numerical methods, for linear and non-linear problems. However the success of them depends very much on the correctness of the problem formulation and the availability of the input data. Validity of the theoretical results can be verified by an experiment using the real or soft materials. An essential reduction of time and costs of the experiment can be obtained by using soft materials, which behaves in a way analogous to that of real metal during deformation. The advantages of using of the soft materials are closely connected with flow stress 500 to 1000 times lower than real materials. The accuracy of physical modeling depend on the similarity conditions between physical model and real process. The most important similarity conditions are materials similarity in the range of plastic and elastic deformation, geometrical, frictional and thermal similarities. New original plastic similarity condition for physical modeling of metal forming processes is proposed in the paper. It bases on the mathematical description of similarity of the flow stress curves of soft materials and real ones

Correct Bayesian and frequentist intervals are similar

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Atwood, C.L.

1986-01-01

This paper argues that Bayesians and frequentists will normally reach numerically similar conclusions, when dealing with vague data or sparse data. It is shown that both statistical methodologies can deal reasonably with vague data. With sparse data, in many important practical cases Bayesian interval estimates and frequentist confidence intervals are approximately equal, although with discrete data the frequentist intervals are somewhat longer. This is not to say that the two methodologies are equally easy to use: The construction of a frequentist confidence interval may require new theoretical development. Bayesians methods typically require numerical integration, perhaps over many variables. Also, Bayesian can easily fall into the trap of over-optimism about their amount of prior knowledge. But in cases where both intervals are found correctly, the two intervals are usually not very different. (orig.)

Marriage Matters: Spousal Similarity in Life Satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Ulrich Schimmack; Richard Lucas

2006-01-01

Examined the concurrent and cross-lagged spousal similarity in life satisfaction over a 21-year period. Analyses were based on married couples (N = 847) in the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Concurrent spousal similarity was considerably higher than one-year retest similarity, revealing spousal similarity in the variable component of life satisfac-tion. Spousal similarity systematically decreased with length of retest interval, revealing simi-larity in the changing component of life sati...

Advances in understanding hypopituitarism

OpenAIRE

Stieg, Mareike R.; Renner, Ulrich; Stalla, G?nter K.; Kopczak, Anna

2017-01-01

The understanding of hypopituitarism has increased over the last three years. This review provides an overview of the most important recent findings. Most of the recent research in hypopituitarism has focused on genetics. New diagnostic techniques like next-generation sequencing have led to the description of different genetic mutations causative for congenital dysfunction of the pituitary gland while new molecular mechanisms underlying pituitary ontogenesis have also been described. Furtherm...

Information filtering based on transferring similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Duo; Zhou, Tao; Liu, Jian-Guo; Liu, Run-Ran; Jia, Chun-Xiao; Wang, Bing-Hong

2009-07-01

In this Brief Report, we propose an index of user similarity, namely, the transferring similarity, which involves all high-order similarities between users. Accordingly, we design a modified collaborative filtering algorithm, which provides remarkably higher accurate predictions than the standard collaborative filtering. More interestingly, we find that the algorithmic performance will approach its optimal value when the parameter, contained in the definition of transferring similarity, gets close to its critical value, before which the series expansion of transferring similarity is convergent and after which it is divergent. Our study is complementary to the one reported in [E. A. Leicht, P. Holme, and M. E. J. Newman, Phys. Rev. E 73, 026120 (2006)], and is relevant to the missing link prediction problem.

Optimizing top precision performance measure of content-based image retrieval by learning similarity function

KAUST Repository

Liang, Ru-Ze

2017-04-24

In this paper we study the problem of content-based image retrieval. In this problem, the most popular performance measure is the top precision measure, and the most important component of a retrieval system is the similarity function used to compare a query image against a database image. However, up to now, there is no existing similarity learning method proposed to optimize the top precision measure. To fill this gap, in this paper, we propose a novel similarity learning method to maximize the top precision measure. We model this problem as a minimization problem with an objective function as the combination of the losses of the relevant images ranked behind the top-ranked irrelevant image, and the squared Frobenius norm of the similarity function parameter. This minimization problem is solved as a quadratic programming problem. The experiments over two benchmark data sets show the advantages of the proposed method over other similarity learning methods when the top precision is used as the performance measure.

Optimizing top precision performance measure of content-based image retrieval by learning similarity function

KAUST Repository

Liang, Ru-Ze; Shi, Lihui; Wang, Haoxiang; Meng, Jiandong; Wang, Jim Jing-Yan; Sun, Qingquan; Gu, Yi

2017-01-01

In this paper we study the problem of content-based image retrieval. In this problem, the most popular performance measure is the top precision measure, and the most important component of a retrieval system is the similarity function used to compare a query image against a database image. However, up to now, there is no existing similarity learning method proposed to optimize the top precision measure. To fill this gap, in this paper, we propose a novel similarity learning method to maximize the top precision measure. We model this problem as a minimization problem with an objective function as the combination of the losses of the relevant images ranked behind the top-ranked irrelevant image, and the squared Frobenius norm of the similarity function parameter. This minimization problem is solved as a quadratic programming problem. The experiments over two benchmark data sets show the advantages of the proposed method over other similarity learning methods when the top precision is used as the performance measure.

Is the red spotted green frog Hypsiboas punctatus (Anura: Hylidae) selecting its preys? The importance of prey availability.

Science.gov (United States)

López, Javier A; Scarabotti, Pablo A; Medrano, María C; Ghirardi, Romina

2009-09-01

The study of the feeding ecology of amphibians is an old issue in herpetology. Notwithstanding, the lack of food resources data in many studies of amphibians feeding has lead to partial understanding of frog feeding strategies. In this study we evaluate the trophic selectivity of a red spotted green frog (Hypsiboas punctatus) population from a Middle Paraná River floodplain pond in Argentina, and discuss the importance of prey availability data when interpreting results from diet analysis. We analyzed the gut contents of 47 H. punctatus adults and compared frog's diet with the environmental food resources. Prey availability was estimated by systematically seep-netting the microhabitat where anurans were localized foraging. We identified 33 taxonomic categories from gastrointestinal contents. Numerically, the most important prey categories were dipterans, followed by hemipterans, homopterans and coleopterans. The diet similarity between males and females was high and no statistical differences in diet composition were found. The most abundant food resources in the environment were dipterans, coleopterans, homopterans and collembolans. In order to assess whether frogs were selecting their preys, we calculated Pianka's niche overlap index and Jacobs' electivity index comparing gut contents to prey availability data. Trophic niche overlap was medium but significantly higher than expected by chance. The electivity index indicated that H. punctatus foraged dipterans slightly above their environmental abundance. Among the secondary preys, hemipterans were foraged selectively, homopterans were consumed in the same proportion to their occurrence in the environment, coleopterans were foraged quite under their availability and collembolans were practically ignored by frogs. Without food resources data, H. punctatus could be classified as a specialist feeder, but dipterans also were quite abundant in the environment. Our results show that H. punctatus fit better as a

Investigation of psychophysical similarity measures for selection of similar images in the diagnosis of clustered microcalcifications on mammograms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Muramatsu, Chisako; Li Qiang; Schmidt, Robert; Shiraishi, Junji; Doi, Kunio

2008-01-01

The presentation of images with lesions of known pathology that are similar to an unknown lesion may be helpful to radiologists in the diagnosis of challenging cases for improving the diagnostic accuracy and also for reducing variation among different radiologists. The authors have been developing a computerized scheme for automatically selecting similar images with clustered microcalcifications on mammograms from a large database. For similar images to be useful, they must be similar from the point of view of the diagnosing radiologists. In order to select such images, subjective similarity ratings were obtained for a number of pairs of clustered microcalcifications by breast radiologists for establishment of a ''gold standard'' of image similarity, and the gold standard was employed for determination and evaluation of the selection of similar images. The images used in this study were obtained from the Digital Database for Screening Mammography developed by the University of South Florida. The subjective similarity ratings for 300 pairs of images with clustered microcalcifications were determined by ten breast radiologists. The authors determined a number of image features which represent the characteristics of clustered microcalcifications that radiologists would use in their diagnosis. For determination of objective similarity measures, an artificial neural network (ANN) was employed. The ANN was trained with the average subjective similarity ratings as teacher and selected image features as input data. The ANN was trained to learn the relationship between the image features and the radiologists' similarity ratings; therefore, once the training was completed, the ANN was able to determine the similarity, called a psychophysical similarity measure, which was expected to be close to radiologists' impressions, for an unknown pair of clustered microcalcifications. By use of a leave-one-out test method, the best combination of features was selected. The correlation

Investigation of psychophysical similarity measures for selection of similar images in the diagnosis of clustered microcalcifications on mammograms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muramatsu, Chisako; Li Qiang; Schmidt, Robert; Shiraishi, Junji; Doi, Kunio [Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, 5841 South Maryland Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States) and Department of Intelligent Image Information, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu (Japan); Department of Radiology, Duke Advanced Imaging Labs, Duke University, 2424 Erwin Road, Suite 302, Durham, North Carolina 27705 (United States); Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, 5841 South Maryland Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States)

2008-12-15

The presentation of images with lesions of known pathology that are similar to an unknown lesion may be helpful to radiologists in the diagnosis of challenging cases for improving the diagnostic accuracy and also for reducing variation among different radiologists. The authors have been developing a computerized scheme for automatically selecting similar images with clustered microcalcifications on mammograms from a large database. For similar images to be useful, they must be similar from the point of view of the diagnosing radiologists. In order to select such images, subjective similarity ratings were obtained for a number of pairs of clustered microcalcifications by breast radiologists for establishment of a ''gold standard'' of image similarity, and the gold standard was employed for determination and evaluation of the selection of similar images. The images used in this study were obtained from the Digital Database for Screening Mammography developed by the University of South Florida. The subjective similarity ratings for 300 pairs of images with clustered microcalcifications were determined by ten breast radiologists. The authors determined a number of image features which represent the characteristics of clustered microcalcifications that radiologists would use in their diagnosis. For determination of objective similarity measures, an artificial neural network (ANN) was employed. The ANN was trained with the average subjective similarity ratings as teacher and selected image features as input data. The ANN was trained to learn the relationship between the image features and the radiologists' similarity ratings; therefore, once the training was completed, the ANN was able to determine the similarity, called a psychophysical similarity measure, which was expected to be close to radiologists' impressions, for an unknown pair of clustered microcalcifications. By use of a leave-one-out test method, the best combination of features

Similarity maps and hierarchical clustering for annotating FT-IR spectral images.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, Qiaoyong; Yang, Chen; Großerüschkamp, Frederik; Kallenbach-Thieltges, Angela; Serocka, Peter; Gerwert, Klaus; Mosig, Axel

2013-11-20

Unsupervised segmentation of multi-spectral images plays an important role in annotating infrared microscopic images and is an essential step in label-free spectral histopathology. In this context, diverse clustering approaches have been utilized and evaluated in order to achieve segmentations of Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) microscopic images that agree with histopathological characterization. We introduce so-called interactive similarity maps as an alternative annotation strategy for annotating infrared microscopic images. We demonstrate that segmentations obtained from interactive similarity maps lead to similarly accurate segmentations as segmentations obtained from conventionally used hierarchical clustering approaches. In order to perform this comparison on quantitative grounds, we provide a scheme that allows to identify non-horizontal cuts in dendrograms. This yields a validation scheme for hierarchical clustering approaches commonly used in infrared microscopy. We demonstrate that interactive similarity maps may identify more accurate segmentations than hierarchical clustering based approaches, and thus are a viable and due to their interactive nature attractive alternative to hierarchical clustering. Our validation scheme furthermore shows that performance of hierarchical two-means is comparable to the traditionally used Ward's clustering. As the former is much more efficient in time and memory, our results suggest another less resource demanding alternative for annotating large spectral images.

Understanding Listening Competency: A Systematic Review of Research Scales

Science.gov (United States)

Fontana, Peter C.; Cohen, Steven D.; Wolvin, Andrew D.

2015-01-01

To better understand what constitutes listening competency, we perform a systematic review of listening scales. Our goal was twofold: to determine the most commonly appearing listening traits and to determine if listening scales are similar to one other. As part of our analysis, we identified 53 relevant scales and analyzed the scales…

Beyond OCR: Handwritten manuscript attribute understanding

NARCIS (Netherlands)

He, Sheng

2017-01-01

Knowing the author, date and location of handwritten historical documents is very important for historians to completely understand and reveal the valuable information they contain. In this thesis, three attributes, such as writer, date and geographical location, are studied by analyzing the

A cross-cultural, multilevel study of inquiry-based instruction effects on conceptual understanding and motivation in physics

Science.gov (United States)

Negishi, Meiko

Student achievement and motivation to learn physics is highly valued in many industrialized countries including the United States and Japan. Science education curricula in these countries emphasize the importance and encourage classroom teachers to use an inquiry approach. This dissertation investigated high school students' motivational orientations and their understanding of physics concepts in a context of inquiry-based instruction. The goals were to explore the patterns of instructional effects on motivation and learning in each country and to examine cultural differences and similarities. Participants consisted of 108 students (55 females, 53 males) and 9 physics teachers in the United States and 616 students (203 females and 413 males) and 11 physics teachers in Japan. Students were administered (a) Force Concept Inventory measuring physics conceptual understanding and (b) Attitudes about Science Questionnaire measuring student motivational orientations. Teachers were given a survey regarding their use of inquiry teaching practices and background information. Additionally, three teachers in each country were interviewed and observed in their classrooms. For the data analysis, two-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) methods were used to examine individual student differences (i.e., learning, motivation, and gender) within each classroom (i.e., inquiry-based teaching, teaching experience, and class size) in the U.S. and Japan, separately. Descriptive statistical analyses were also conducted. The results indicated that there was a cultural similarity in that current teaching practices had minimal influence on conceptual understanding as well as motivation of high school students between the U.S. and Japan. In contrast, cultural differences were observed in classroom structures and instructional approaches. Furthermore, this study revealed gender inequity in Japanese students' conceptual understanding and self-efficacy. Limitations of the study, as well as

Similar speaker recognition using nonlinear analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seo, J.P.; Kim, M.S.; Baek, I.C.; Kwon, Y.H.; Lee, K.S.; Chang, S.W.; Yang, S.I.

2004-01-01

Speech features of the conventional speaker identification system, are usually obtained by linear methods in spectral space. However, these methods have the drawback that speakers with similar voices cannot be distinguished, because the characteristics of their voices are also similar in spectral space. To overcome the difficulty in linear methods, we propose to use the correlation exponent in the nonlinear space as a new feature vector for speaker identification among persons with similar voices. We show that our proposed method surprisingly reduces the error rate of speaker identification system to speakers with similar voices

Structural similarities in DNA packaging and delivery apparatuses in Herpesvirus and dsDNA bacteriophages.

Science.gov (United States)

Rixon, Frazer J; Schmid, Michael F

2014-04-01

Structural information can inform our understanding of virus origins and evolution. The herpesviruses and tailed bacteriophages constitute two large families of dsDNA viruses which infect vertebrates and prokaryotes respectively. A relationship between these disparate groups was initially suggested by similarities in their capsid assembly and DNA packaging strategies. This relationship has now been confirmed by a range of studies that have revealed common structural features in their capsid proteins, and similar organizations and sequence conservation in their DNA packaging machinery and maturational proteases. This concentration of conserved traits in proteins involved in essential and primordial capsid/packaging functions is evidence that these structures are derived from an ancient, common ancestor and is in sharp contrast to the lack of such evidence for other virus functions. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The Educational Importance of Deep Wonder

Science.gov (United States)

Schinkel, Anders

2017-01-01

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to (novel) experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement…

Self-similar dynamic converging shocks - I. An isothermal gas sphere with self-gravity

Science.gov (United States)

Lou, Yu-Qing; Shi, Chun-Hui

2014-07-01

We explore novel self-similar dynamic evolution of converging spherical shocks in a self-gravitating isothermal gas under conceivable astrophysical situations. The construction of such converging shocks involves a time-reversal operation on feasible flow profiles in self-similar expansion with a proper care for the increasing direction of the specific entropy. Pioneered by Guderley since 1942 but without self-gravity so far, self-similar converging shocks are important for implosion processes in aerodynamics, combustion, and inertial fusion. Self-gravity necessarily plays a key role for grossly spherical structures in very broad contexts of astrophysics and cosmology, such as planets, stars, molecular clouds (cores), compact objects, planetary nebulae, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, supernova remnants, globular clusters, galactic bulges, elliptical galaxies, clusters of galaxies as well as relatively hollow cavity or bubble structures on diverse spatial and temporal scales. Large-scale dynamic flows associated with such quasi-spherical systems (including collapses, accretions, fall-backs, winds and outflows, explosions, etc.) in their initiation, formation, and evolution are likely encounter converging spherical shocks at times. Our formalism lays an important theoretical basis for pertinent astrophysical and cosmological applications of various converging shock solutions and for developing and calibrating numerical codes. As examples, we describe converging shock triggered star formation, supernova explosions, and void collapses.

Phylogeny, Traits, and Biodiversity of a Neotropical Bat Assemblage: Close Relatives Show Similar Responses to Local Deforestation.

Science.gov (United States)

Frank, Hannah K; Frishkoff, Luke O; Mendenhall, Chase D; Daily, Gretchen C; Hadly, Elizabeth A

2017-08-01

If species' evolutionary pasts predetermine their responses to evolutionarily novel stressors, then phylogeny could predict species survival in an increasingly human-dominated world. To understand the role of phylogenetic relatedness in structuring responses to rapid environmental change, we focused on assemblages of Neotropical bats, an ecologically diverse and functionally important group. We examined how taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity shift between tropical forest and farmland. We then explored the importance of evolutionary history by ascertaining whether close relatives share similar responses to environmental change and which species traits might mediate these trends. We analyzed a 5-year data set (5,011 captures) from 18 sites in a countryside landscape in southern Costa Rica using statistical models that account and correct for imperfect detection of species across sites, spatial autocorrelation, and consideration of spatial scale. Taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity decreased with deforestation, and assemblages became more phylogenetically clustered. Species' responses to deforestation were strongly phylogenetically correlated. Body mass and absolute wing loading explained a substantial portion of species variation in species' habitat preferences, likely related to these traits' influence on maneuverability in cluttered forest environments. Our findings highlight the role that evolutionary history plays in determining which species will survive human impacts and the need to consider diversity metrics, evolutionary history, and traits together when making predictions about species persistence for conservation or ecosystem functioning.

Similarity and self-similarity in high energy density physics: application to laboratory astrophysics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Falize, E.

2008-10-01

The spectacular recent development of powerful facilities allows the astrophysical community to explore, in laboratory, astrophysical phenomena where radiation and matter are strongly coupled. The titles of the nine chapters of the thesis are: from high energy density physics to laboratory astrophysics; Lie groups, invariance and self-similarity; scaling laws and similarity properties in High-Energy-Density physics; the Burgan-Feix-Munier transformation; dynamics of polytropic gases; stationary radiating shocks and the POLAR project; structure, dynamics and stability of optically thin fluids; from young star jets to laboratory jets; modelling and experiences for laboratory jets

GOssTo: a stand-alone application and a web tool for calculating semantic similarities on the Gene Ontology

OpenAIRE

Caniza, Horacio; Romero, Alfonso E.; Heron, Samuel; Yang, Haixuan; Devoto, Alessandra; Frasca, Marco; Mesiti, Marco; Valentini, Giorgio; Paccanaro, Alberto

2014-01-01

Summary: We present GOssTo, the Gene Ontology semantic similarity Tool, a user-friendly software system for calculating semantic similarities between gene products according to the Gene Ontology. GOssTo is bundled with six semantic similarity measures, including both term- and graph-based measures, and has extension capabilities to allow the user to add new similarities. Importantly, for any measure, GOssTo can also calculate the Random Walk Contribution that has been shown to greatly improve...

Image of Brazil: similarities and differences in the assessment in ten countries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eber Celoto Souza

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This article seeks to understand how foreigners make their image about Brazil and investigates similarities and differences in this assessment. The paper presents the results of a survey of 4373 respondents of ten countries. The authors performed a factor analysis to identify the dimensions and assessment of each country followed by a discriminant analysis. The results indicate that Brazil has a slightly positive image in the sample studied. The affection dimension has the best evaluation, while the communication dimension is the worst, and eight statements have the highest discrimination on the image of Brazil.

Semantic similarity between old and new items produces false alarms in recognition memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Montefinese, Maria; Zannino, Gian Daniele; Ambrosini, Ettore

2015-09-01

In everyday life, human beings can report memories of past events that did not occur or that occurred differently from the way they remember them because memory is an imperfect process of reconstruction and is prone to distortion and errors. In this recognition study using word stimuli, we investigated whether a specific operationalization of semantic similarity among concepts can modulate false memories while controlling for the possible effect of associative strength and word co-occurrence in an old-new recognition task. The semantic similarity value of each new concept was calculated as the mean cosine similarity between pairs of vectors representing that new concept and each old concept belonging to the same semantic category. Results showed that, compared with (new) low-similarity concepts, (new) high-similarity concepts had significantly higher probability of being falsely recognized as old, even after partialling out the effect of confounding variables, including associative relatedness and lexical co-occurrence. This finding supports the feature-based view of semantic memory, suggesting that meaning overlap and sharing of semantic features (which are greater when more similar semantic concepts are being processed) have an influence on recognition performance, resulting in more false alarms for new high-similarity concepts. We propose that the associative strength and word co-occurrence among concepts are not sufficient to explain illusory memories but is important to take into account also the effects of feature-based semantic relations, and, in particular, the semantic similarity among concepts.

Science Olympiad students' nature of science understandings

Science.gov (United States)

Philpot, Cindy J.

2007-12-01

Recent reform efforts in science education focus on scientific literacy for all citizens. In order to be scientifically literate, an individual must have informed understandings of nature of science (NOS), scientific inquiry, and science content matter. This study specifically focused on Science Olympiad students' understanding of NOS as one piece of scientific literacy. Research consistently shows that science students do not have informed understandings of NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Bell, Blair, Crawford, and Lederman, 2002; Kilcrease and Lucy, 2002; Schwartz, Lederman, and Thompson, 2001). However, McGhee-Brown, Martin, Monsaas and Stombler (2003) found that Science Olympiad students had in-depth understandings of science concepts, principles, processes, and techniques. Science Olympiad teams compete nationally and are found in rural, urban, and suburban schools. In an effort to learn from students who are generally considered high achieving students and who enjoy science, as opposed to the typical science student, the purpose of this study was to investigate Science Olympiad students' understandings of NOS and the experiences that formed their understandings. An interpretive, qualitative, case study method was used to address the research questions. The participants were purposefully and conveniently selected from the Science Olympiad team at a suburban high school. Data collection consisted of the Views of Nature of Science -- High School Questionnaire (VNOS-HS) (Schwartz, Lederman, & Thompson, 2001), semi-structured individual interviews, and a focus group. The main findings of this study were similar to much of the previous research in that the participants had informed understandings of the tentative nature of science and the role of inferences in science, but they did not have informed understandings of the role of human imagination and creativity, the empirical nature of science, or theories and laws. High level science classes and participation in

Understanding signal integrity

CERN Document Server

Thierauf, Stephen C

2010-01-01

This unique book provides you with practical guidance on understanding and interpreting signal integrity (SI) performance to help you with your challenging circuit board design projects. You find high-level discussions of important SI concepts presented in a clear and easily accessible format, including question and answer sections and bulleted lists.This valuable resource features rules of thumb and simple equations to help you make estimates of critical signal integrity parameters without using circuit simulators of CAD (computer-aided design). The book is supported with over 120 illustratio

The Importance of Institutional Culture at a Technical College

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Sarah Y.

2014-01-01

This is a qualitative study about the importance of institutional culture at a particular technical college in Wisconsin. It examines the administrators' understanding of their institution's culture, the importance they attach to the culture, and how they perceive they both manage and influence their institution's culture. Bergquist and Pawlak's…

Dynamic similarity in erosional processes

Science.gov (United States)

Scheidegger, A.E.

1963-01-01

A study is made of the dynamic similarity conditions obtaining in a variety of erosional processes. The pertinent equations for each type of process are written in dimensionless form; the similarity conditions can then easily be deduced. The processes treated are: raindrop action, slope evolution and river erosion. ?? 1963 Istituto Geofisico Italiano.

Examination of race disparities in physical inactivity among adults of similar social context.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson-Frederick, Shondelle M; Thorpe, Roland J; Bell, Caryn N; Bleich, Sara N; Ford, Jean G; LaVeist, Thomas A

2014-01-01

The objective of the study was to determine whether race disparities in physical inactivity are present among urban low-income Blacks and Whites living in similar social context. This analysis included Black and White respondents ( > or = 18 years) from the Exploring Health Disparities in Integrated Communities-Southwest Baltimore (EHDIC-SWB; N=1350) Study and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS; N = 67790). Respondents who reported no levels of moderate or vigorous physical activity, during leisure time, over a usual week were considered physically inactive. After controlling for confounders, Blacks had higher adjusted odds of physical inactivity compared to Whites in the national sample (odds ratio [OR] = 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.30-1.51). In EHDIC-SWB, Blacks and Whites had a similar odds of physical inactivity (OR = 1.09; 95% CI .86-1.40). Social context contributes to our understanding of racial disparities in physical inactivity.

Joint recognition-expression impairment of facial emotions in Huntington's disease despite intact understanding of feelings.

Science.gov (United States)

Trinkler, Iris; Cleret de Langavant, Laurent; Bachoud-Lévi, Anne-Catherine

2013-02-01

Patients with Huntington's disease (HD), a neurodegenerative disorder that causes major motor impairments, also show cognitive and emotional deficits. While their deficit in recognising emotions has been explored in depth, little is known about their ability to express emotions and understand their feelings. If these faculties were impaired, patients might not only mis-read emotion expressions in others but their own emotions might be mis-interpreted by others as well, or thirdly, they might have difficulties understanding and describing their feelings. We compared the performance of recognition and expression of facial emotions in 13 HD patients with mild motor impairments but without significant bucco-facial abnormalities, and 13 controls matched for age and education. Emotion recognition was investigated in a forced-choice recognition test (FCR), and emotion expression by filming participants while they mimed the six basic emotional facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, surprise, sadness and joy) to the experimenter. The films were then segmented into 60 stimuli per participant and four external raters performed a FCR on this material. Further, we tested understanding of feelings in self (alexithymia) and others (empathy) using questionnaires. Both recognition and expression were impaired across different emotions in HD compared to controls and recognition and expression scores were correlated. By contrast, alexithymia and empathy scores were very similar in HD and controls. This might suggest that emotion deficits in HD might be tied to the expression itself. Because similar emotion recognition-expression deficits are also found in Parkinson's Disease and vascular lesions of the striatum, our results further confirm the importance of the striatum for emotion recognition and expression, while access to the meaning of feelings relies on a different brain network, and is spared in HD. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The importance of age, sex and place in understanding socioeconomic inequalities in allostatic load: Evidence from the Scottish Health Survey (2008-2011).

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Tony; Watts, Eleanor

2016-02-09

Given the broad spectrum of health and wellbeing outcomes that are patterned by socioeconomic position (SEP), it has been suggested that there may be common biological pathways linking SEP and health. Allostatic load is one such pathway, which aims to measure cumulative burden/dysregulation across multiple physiological systems. This study aimed to determine the contextual and demographic factors (age, sex and place) that may be important in better understanding the links between lower SEP and higher allostatic load. Data were from a nationally representative sample of adults (18+): the Scottish Health Survey (2008-2011). Higher SEP ('1') was defined as having 'Higher'-level, secondary school qualifications versus having lower level or no qualifications ('0'). For allostatic load, a range of 10 biomarkers across the cardiovascular, metabolic and immune systems were used. Respondents were scored "1" for each biomarker that fell into the highest quartile of risk. Linear regressions were run in STATA, including SEP, age (continuous and as a 7-category variable), sex (male/female), urbanity (a 5-category variable ranging from primary cities to remote rural areas) and geographical location (based on 10 area-level healthboards). Interactions between SEP and each predictor, as well as stratified analyses, were tested. Lower SEP was associated with higher allostatic load even after adjusting for age, sex and place (b = -0.631, 95 % CI -0.795, -0.389, p < 0.001). There was no significant effect moderation between SEP and age, sex or place. Stratified analysis did show that the inequality identified in the baseline models widened with age, becoming significant at ages 35-44, before narrowing at older ages (75+). There was no difference by sex, but more mixed findings with regards place (urbanity or geographical location), with a mix of significant and non-significant results by SEP that did not appear to follow any pattern. Inequalities in allostatic load by educational

Demonstration of Functional Similarity of Proposed Biosimilar ABP 501 to Adalimumab.

Science.gov (United States)

Velayudhan, Jyoti; Chen, Yuh-Feng; Rohrbach, Amanda; Pastula, Christina; Maher, Gwen; Thomas, Heather; Brown, Ryan; Born, Teresa L

2016-08-01

Due to the complex molecular structure and proprietary manufacturing processes of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), differences in structure and function may be expected during development of biosimilar mAbs. Important regulatory requirements for approval of biosimilar products involve comprehensive assessments of any potential differences between proposed biosimilars and reference mAbs, including differences in all known mechanisms of action, using sensitive and relevant methods. Any identified structural differences should not result in differences in biofunctional or clinical activity. A comprehensive assessment comparing the Amgen biosimilar candidate ABP 501 with FDA-licensed adalimumab (adalimumab [US]) and EU-authorized adalimumab (adalimumab [EU]) was conducted to demonstrate similarity in biofunctional activity. The functional similarity assessment included testing of binding kinetics to soluble tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) and relative binding to transmembrane TNFα. The neutralization of TNFα-induced caspase activation, TNFα- and lymphotoxin-α (LTα)-induced chemokine production, and cytotoxicity was also tested. Binding to Fc-gamma receptors FcγRIa, FcγRIIa (131H), FcγRIIIa (158V and 158F), and neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) was compared with the reference mAbs, as was antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity and complement-dependent cytotoxicity. The data demonstrate that ABP 501 is similar to both adalimumab (US) and adalimumab (EU) with respect to evaluated biofunctional activities. Similarity in biofunctional activity is a critical component of the totality of evidence required for demonstration of biosimilarity. The functional similarity demonstrated for ABP 501 comprehensively assesses the known mechanisms of action of adalimumab, supporting the conclusion that ABP 501, adalimumab (US), and adalimumab (EU) are likely to be clinically similar.

Annotation: Understanding the Development of Psychopathy

Science.gov (United States)

Viding, Essi

2004-01-01

Background: Psychopaths are not only antisocial, but also have a callous and unemotional personality profile. This article selectively reviews evidence that psychopathic personality traits are an important factor in understanding and predicting the development of persistent antisocial conduct. Cognitive neuroscience research and more tentative…

Logarithmic Similarity Measure between Interval-Valued Fuzzy Sets and Its Fault Diagnosis Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhikang Lu

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Fault diagnosis is an important task for the normal operation and maintenance of equipment. In many real situations, the diagnosis data cannot provide deterministic values and are usually imprecise or uncertain. Thus, interval-valued fuzzy sets (IVFSs are very suitable for expressing imprecise or uncertain fault information in real problems. However, existing literature scarcely deals with fault diagnosis problems, such as gasoline engines and steam turbines with IVFSs. However, the similarity measure is one of the important tools in fault diagnoses. Therefore, this paper proposes a new similarity measure of IVFSs based on logarithmic function and its fault diagnosis method for the first time. By the logarithmic similarity measure between the fault knowledge and some diagnosis-testing samples with interval-valued fuzzy information and its relation indices, we can determine the fault type and ranking order of faults corresponding to the relation indices. Then, the misfire fault diagnosis of the gasoline engine and the vibrational fault diagnosis of a turbine are presented to demonstrate the simplicity and effectiveness of the proposed diagnosis method. The fault diagnosis results of gasoline engine and steam turbine show that the proposed diagnosis method not only gives the main fault types of the gasoline engine and steam turbine but also provides useful information for multi-fault analyses and predicting future fault trends. Hence, the logarithmic similarity measure and its fault diagnosis method are main contributions in this study and they provide a useful new way for the fault diagnosis with interval-valued fuzzy information.

Assessing Children's Understanding of Length Measurement: A Focus on Three Key Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Bush, Heidi

2009-01-01

In this article, the author presents three different tasks that can be used to assess students' understanding of the concept of length. Three important measurement concepts for students to understand are transitive reasoning, use of identical units, and iteration. In any teaching and learning process it is important to acknowledge students'…

A Feature-Based Structural Measure: An Image Similarity Measure for Face Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noor Abdalrazak Shnain

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Facial recognition is one of the most challenging and interesting problems within the field of computer vision and pattern recognition. During the last few years, it has gained special attention due to its importance in relation to current issues such as security, surveillance systems and forensics analysis. Despite this high level of attention to facial recognition, the success is still limited by certain conditions; there is no method which gives reliable results in all situations. In this paper, we propose an efficient similarity index that resolves the shortcomings of the existing measures of feature and structural similarity. This measure, called the Feature-Based Structural Measure (FSM, combines the best features of the well-known SSIM (structural similarity index measure and FSIM (feature similarity index measure approaches, striking a balance between performance for similar and dissimilar images of human faces. In addition to the statistical structural properties provided by SSIM, edge detection is incorporated in FSM as a distinctive structural feature. Its performance is tested for a wide range of PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio, using ORL (Olivetti Research Laboratory, now AT&T Laboratory Cambridge and FEI (Faculty of Industrial Engineering, São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, Brazil databases. The proposed measure is tested under conditions of Gaussian noise; simulation results show that the proposed FSM outperforms the well-known SSIM and FSIM approaches in its efficiency of similarity detection and recognition of human faces.

Trajectory similarity join in spatial networks

KAUST Repository

Shang, Shuo

2017-09-07

The matching of similar pairs of objects, called similarity join, is fundamental functionality in data management. We consider the case of trajectory similarity join (TS-Join), where the objects are trajectories of vehicles moving in road networks. Thus, given two sets of trajectories and a threshold θ, the TS-Join returns all pairs of trajectories from the two sets with similarity above θ. This join targets applications such as trajectory near-duplicate detection, data cleaning, ridesharing recommendation, and traffic congestion prediction. With these applications in mind, we provide a purposeful definition of similarity. To enable efficient TS-Join processing on large sets of trajectories, we develop search space pruning techniques and take into account the parallel processing capabilities of modern processors. Specifically, we present a two-phase divide-and-conquer algorithm. For each trajectory, the algorithm first finds similar trajectories. Then it merges the results to achieve a final result. The algorithm exploits an upper bound on the spatiotemporal similarity and a heuristic scheduling strategy for search space pruning. The algorithm\\'s per-trajectory searches are independent of each other and can be performed in parallel, and the merging has constant cost. An empirical study with real data offers insight in the performance of the algorithm and demonstrates that is capable of outperforming a well-designed baseline algorithm by an order of magnitude.

Risk communication importance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cunha, Raquel Dalledone Siqueira da; Andrade, Delvonei Alves de, E-mail: raqueldalledonesiqueira@gmail.com, E-mail: delvonei@ipen.br [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN-SP), Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2013-07-01

Risk Communication has shown its importance in the elaboration of emergency plans in the Chemical industry. In the 90's, the UNEP developed the APELL (Awareness and Preparedness for Emergency at Local Level) plan, a risk management methodology used by dangerous chemical facilities. The methodology comprises the commitment of both Government and the community located in the risk area in the development of the emergency plan. In the nuclear sector, there is no similar methodology developed so far. However, establishing a communication channel between the nuclear segment and the community is essential. In Brazil, the construction of Angra 3 and the RMB (Multi Purpose Reactor) project stand as nuclear initiatives that improve the importance of a good communication to the public. Security issues of these projects are natural sources of concernment to the public, which is aggravated by events such as the Fukushima disaster. Without an effective communication about what means the presence of nuclear plants and reactors in a specific area, the interested public will only have an alarmist vision of the subject, given by those against these facilities. (author)

Risk communication importance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cunha, Raquel Dalledone Siqueira da; Andrade, Delvonei Alves de

2013-01-01

Risk Communication has shown its importance in the elaboration of emergency plans in the Chemical industry. In the 90's, the UNEP developed the APELL (Awareness and Preparedness for Emergency at Local Level) plan, a risk management methodology used by dangerous chemical facilities. The methodology comprises the commitment of both Government and the community located in the risk area in the development of the emergency plan. In the nuclear sector, there is no similar methodology developed so far. However, establishing a communication channel between the nuclear segment and the community is essential. In Brazil, the construction of Angra 3 and the RMB (Multi Purpose Reactor) project stand as nuclear initiatives that improve the importance of a good communication to the public. Security issues of these projects are natural sources of concernment to the public, which is aggravated by events such as the Fukushima disaster. Without an effective communication about what means the presence of nuclear plants and reactors in a specific area, the interested public will only have an alarmist vision of the subject, given by those against these facilities. (author)

On self-similar Tolman models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maharaj, S.D.

1988-01-01

The self-similar spherically symmetric solutions of the Einstein field equation for the case of dust are identified. These form a subclass of the Tolman models. These self-similar models contain the solution recently presented by Chi [J. Math. Phys. 28, 1539 (1987)], thereby refuting the claim of having found a new solution to the Einstein field equations

Protein import into isolated pea root leucoplasts

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Chiung-Chih eChu

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Leucoplasts are important organelles for the synthesis and storage of starch, lipids and proteins. However, molecular mechanism of protein import into leucoplasts and how it differs from that of import into chloroplasts remain unknown. We used pea seedlings for both chloroplast and leucoplast isolations to compare within the same species. We further optimized the isolation and import conditions to improve import efficiency and to permit a quantitative comparison between the two plastid types. The authenticity of the import was verified using a mitochondrial precursor protein. Our results show that, when normalized to Toc75, most translocon proteins are less abundant in leucoplasts than in chloroplasts. A precursor shown to prefer the receptor Toc132 indeed had relatively more similar import efficiencies between chloroplasts and leucoplasts compared to precursors that preferred Toc159. Furthermore we found two precursors that exhibited very high import efficiency into leucoplasts. Their transit peptides may be candidates for delivering transgenic proteins into leucoplasts and for analyzing motifs important for leucoplast import.

The value of health professions education: the importance of understanding the learner perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Sandars, John; Walsh, Kieran

2016-07-01

The value of health professions education (HPE), with increasing demand for value resultant on financial constraint, has come under increasing scrutiny. An essential aspect for critical consideration is the extent to which the value ascribed by the learner differs from that of the HPE provider, especially in relation to the learning Methods and assessment of the HPE curriculum. The challenge of reconciling the tensions and differing perspectives of the learners and HPE providers can be met through co-production of the curriculum. The focus of the co-production approach is the recognition of the importance of diversity and social justice.

Cross-Cultural Understanding of Robotics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Peronard, Jean-Paul

2013-01-01

This article aims to improve our understanding of how people in a healthcare context adopt robot technology and, in particular, the importance of culture in this process. The adoption of technology can be problematic when transferring technology from one culture to another. Differences in values...... and beliefs about robotics can affect the motivation for as well as the practice of using robotics in healthcare. Therefore, this paper seeks to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of the cultural impact on robotics adoption by using a cross-cultural perspective to explain variation in priorities...... and discuss possible guidelines to help build a strategy for introducing robotics into a culture’s healthcare sector and broaden the current agenda in international technology marketing....

Vertex labeling and routing in self-similar outerplanar unclustered graphs modeling complex networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comellas, Francesc; Miralles, Alicia

2009-01-01

This paper introduces a labeling and optimal routing algorithm for a family of modular, self-similar, small-world graphs with clustering zero. Many properties of this family are comparable to those of networks associated with technological and biological systems with low clustering, such as the power grid, some electronic circuits and protein networks. For these systems, the existence of models with an efficient routing protocol is of interest to design practical communication algorithms in relation to dynamical processes (including synchronization) and also to understand the underlying mechanisms that have shaped their particular structure.

Phytomonas serpens: immunological similarities with the human trypanosomatid pathogens.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos, André L S; d'Avila-Levy, Claudia M; Elias, Camila G R; Vermelho, Alane B; Branquinha, Marta H

2007-07-01

The present review provides an overview of recent discoveries concerning the immunological similarities between Phytomonas serpens, a tomato parasite, and human trypanosomatid pathogens, with special emphasis on peptidases. Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma cruzi express peptidases that are well-known virulence factors, named leishmanolysin and cruzipain. P. serpens synthesizes two distinct classes of proteolytic enzymes, metallo- and cysteine-type peptidases, that share common epitopes with leishmanolysin and cruzipain, respectively. The leishmanolysin-like and cruzipain-like molecules from P. serpens participate in several biological processes including cellular growth and adhesion to the salivary glands of Oncopeltus fasciatus, a phytophagous insect experimental model. Since previous reports demonstrated that immunization of mice with P. serpens induced a partial protective immune response against T. cruzi, this plant trypanosomatid may be a suitable candidate for vaccine studies. Moreover, comparative approaches in the Trypanosomatidae family may be useful to understand kinetoplastid biology, biochemistry and evolution.

Improving Classification of Protein Interaction Articles Using Context Similarity-Based Feature Selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yifei; Sun, Yuxing; Han, Bing-Qing

2015-01-01

Protein interaction article classification is a text classification task in the biological domain to determine which articles describe protein-protein interactions. Since the feature space in text classification is high-dimensional, feature selection is widely used for reducing the dimensionality of features to speed up computation without sacrificing classification performance. Many existing feature selection methods are based on the statistical measure of document frequency and term frequency. One potential drawback of these methods is that they treat features separately. Hence, first we design a similarity measure between the context information to take word cooccurrences and phrase chunks around the features into account. Then we introduce the similarity of context information to the importance measure of the features to substitute the document and term frequency. Hence we propose new context similarity-based feature selection methods. Their performance is evaluated on two protein interaction article collections and compared against the frequency-based methods. The experimental results reveal that the context similarity-based methods perform better in terms of the F1 measure and the dimension reduction rate. Benefiting from the context information surrounding the features, the proposed methods can select distinctive features effectively for protein interaction article classification.

Synergistic nuclear import of NeuroD1 and its partner transcription factor, E47, via heterodimerization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mehmood, Rashid; Yasuhara, Noriko; Oe, Souichi; Nagai, Masahiro; Yoneda, Yoshihiro

2009-01-01

The transition from undifferentiated pluripotent cells to terminally differentiated neurons is coordinated by a repertoire of transcription factors. NeuroD1 is a type II basic helix loop helix (bHLH) transcription factor that plays critical roles in neuronal differentiation and maintenance in the central nervous system. Its dimerization with E47, a type I bHLH transcription factor, leads to the transcriptional regulation of target genes. Mounting evidence suggests that regulating the localization of transcription factors contributes to the regulation of their activity during development as defects in their localization underlie a variety of developmental disorders. In this study, we attempted to understand the nuclear import mannerisms of NeuroD1 and E47. We found that the nuclear import of NeuroD1 and E47 is energy-dependent and involves the Ran-mediated pathway. Herein, we demonstrate that NeuroD1 and E47 can dimerize inside the cytoplasm before their nuclear import. Moreover, this dimerization promotes nuclear import as the nuclear accumulation of NeuroD1 was enhanced in the presence of E47 in an in vitro nuclear import assay, and NLS-deficient NeuroD1 was successfully imported into the nucleus upon E47 overexpression. NeuroD1 also had a similar effect on the nuclear accumulation of NLS-deficient E47. These findings suggest a novel role for dimerization that may promote, at least partially, the nuclear import of transcription factors allowing them to function efficiently in the nucleus.

Phonological similarity and orthographic similarity affect probed serial recall of Chinese characters.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Yi-Chen; Chen, Hsiang-Yu; Lai, Yvonne C; Wu, Denise H

2015-04-01

The previous literature on working memory (WM) has indicated that verbal materials are dominantly retained in phonological representations, whereas other linguistic information (e.g., orthography, semantics) only contributes to verbal WM minimally, if not negligibly. Although accumulating evidence has suggested that multiple linguistic components jointly support verbal WM, the visual/orthographic contribution has rarely been addressed in alphabetic languages, possibly due to the difficulty of dissociating the effects of word forms from the effects of their pronunciations in relatively shallow orthography. In the present study, we examined whether the orthographic representations of Chinese characters support the retention of verbal materials in this language of deep orthography. In Experiments 1a and 2, we independently manipulated the phonological and orthographic similarity of horizontal and vertical characters, respectively, and found that participants' accuracy of probed serial recall was reduced by both similar pronunciations and shared phonetic radicals in the to-be-remembered stimuli. Moreover, Experiment 1b showed that only the effect of phonological, but not that of orthographic, similarity was affected by concurrent articulatory suppression. Taken together, the present results indicate the indispensable contribution of orthographic representations to verbal WM of Chinese characters, and suggest that the linguistic characteristics of a specific language not only determine long-term linguistic-processing mechanisms, but also delineate the organization of verbal WM for that language.

The Effect of Script Similarity on Executive Control in Bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily L Coderre

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The need for executive control (EC during bilingual language processing is thought to enhance these abilities, conferring a ‘bilingual advantage’ on EC tasks. Recently, the reliability and robustness of the bilingual advantage has been questioned, with many variables reportedly affecting the size and presence of the bilingual advantage. This study investigates one further variable that may affect bilingual EC abilities: the similarity of a bilingual’s two languages. We hypothesize that bilinguals whose two languages have a larger degree of orthographic overlap will require greater EC to manage their languages compared to bilinguals who use two languages with less overlap. We tested three groups of bilinguals with language pairs ranging from high- to low-similarity (German-English (GE, Polish-English (PE, and Arabic-English (AE, respectively and a group of English monolinguals on a Stroop and Simon task. Two components of the bilingual advantage were investigated: an interference advantage, such that bilinguals have smaller interference effects than monolinguals; and a global RT advantage, such that bilinguals are faster overall than monolinguals. Between bilingual groups, these effects were expected to be modulated by script similarity. AE bilinguals showed the smallest Stroop interference effects, but the longest overall RTs in both tasks. These seemingly contradictory results are explained by the presence of cross-linguistic interference in the Stroop task. We conclude that similar-script bilinguals demonstrated more effective domain-general EC than different-script bilinguals, since high orthographic overlap creates more cross-linguistic activation and increases the daily demands on cognitive control. The role of individual variation is also discussed. These results suggest that script similarity is an important variable to consider in investigations of bilingual executive control abilities.

Searching the protein structure database for ligand-binding site similarities using CPASS v.2

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Caprez Adam

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A recent analysis of protein sequences deposited in the NCBI RefSeq database indicates that ~8.5 million protein sequences are encoded in prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes, where ~30% are explicitly annotated as "hypothetical" or "uncharacterized" protein. Our Comparison of Protein Active-Site Structures (CPASS v.2 database and software compares the sequence and structural characteristics of experimentally determined ligand binding sites to infer a functional relationship in the absence of global sequence or structure similarity. CPASS is an important component of our Functional Annotation Screening Technology by NMR (FAST-NMR protocol and has been successfully applied to aid the annotation of a number of proteins of unknown function. Findings We report a major upgrade to our CPASS software and database that significantly improves its broad utility. CPASS v.2 is designed with a layered architecture to increase flexibility and portability that also enables job distribution over the Open Science Grid (OSG to increase speed. Similarly, the CPASS interface was enhanced to provide more user flexibility in submitting a CPASS query. CPASS v.2 now allows for both automatic and manual definition of ligand-binding sites and permits pair-wise, one versus all, one versus list, or list versus list comparisons. Solvent accessible surface area, ligand root-mean square difference, and Cβ distances have been incorporated into the CPASS similarity function to improve the quality of the results. The CPASS database has also been updated. Conclusions CPASS v.2 is more than an order of magnitude faster than the original implementation, and allows for multiple simultaneous job submissions. Similarly, the CPASS database of ligand-defined binding sites has increased in size by ~ 38%, dramatically increasing the likelihood of a positive search result. The modification to the CPASS similarity function is effective in reducing CPASS similarity scores

New Genome Similarity Measures based on Conserved Gene Adjacencies.

Science.gov (United States)

Doerr, Daniel; Kowada, Luis Antonio B; Araujo, Eloi; Deshpande, Shachi; Dantas, Simone; Moret, Bernard M E; Stoye, Jens

2017-06-01

Many important questions in molecular biology, evolution, and biomedicine can be addressed by comparative genomic approaches. One of the basic tasks when comparing genomes is the definition of measures of similarity (or dissimilarity) between two genomes, for example, to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships between species. The power of different genome comparison methods varies with the underlying formal model of a genome. The simplest models impose the strong restriction that each genome under study must contain the same genes, each in exactly one copy. More realistic models allow several copies of a gene in a genome. One speaks of gene families, and comparative genomic methods that allow this kind of input are called gene family-based. The most powerful-but also most complex-models avoid this preprocessing of the input data and instead integrate the family assignment within the comparative analysis. Such methods are called gene family-free. In this article, we study an intermediate approach between family-based and family-free genomic similarity measures. Introducing this simpler model, called gene connections, we focus on the combinatorial aspects of gene family-free genome comparison. While in most cases, the computational costs to the general family-free case are the same, we also find an instance where the gene connections model has lower complexity. Within the gene connections model, we define three variants of genomic similarity measures that have different expression powers. We give polynomial-time algorithms for two of them, while we show NP-hardness for the third, most powerful one. We also generalize the measures and algorithms to make them more robust against recent local disruptions in gene order. Our theoretical findings are supported by experimental results, proving the applicability and performance of our newly defined similarity measures.

How Do Students Acquire an Understanding of Logarithmic Concepts?

Science.gov (United States)

Mulqueeny, Ellen

2012-01-01

The use of logarithms, an important tool for calculus and beyond, has been reduced to symbol manipulation without understanding in most entry-level college algebra courses. The primary aim of this research, therefore, was to investigate college students' understanding of logarithmic concepts through the use of a series of instructional tasks…

Notions of similarity for systems biology models.

Science.gov (United States)

Henkel, Ron; Hoehndorf, Robert; Kacprowski, Tim; Knüpfer, Christian; Liebermeister, Wolfram; Waltemath, Dagmar

2018-01-01

Systems biology models are rapidly increasing in complexity, size and numbers. When building large models, researchers rely on software tools for the retrieval, comparison, combination and merging of models, as well as for version control. These tools need to be able to quantify the differences and similarities between computational models. However, depending on the specific application, the notion of 'similarity' may greatly vary. A general notion of model similarity, applicable to various types of models, is still missing. Here we survey existing methods for the comparison of models, introduce quantitative measures for model similarity, and discuss potential applications of combined similarity measures. To frame model comparison as a general problem, we describe a theoretical approach to defining and computing similarities based on a combination of different model aspects. The six aspects that we define as potentially relevant for similarity are underlying encoding, references to biological entities, quantitative behaviour, qualitative behaviour, mathematical equations and parameters and network structure. We argue that future similarity measures will benefit from combining these model aspects in flexible, problem-specific ways to mimic users' intuition about model similarity, and to support complex model searches in databases. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

Similarity measures for face recognition

CERN Document Server

Vezzetti, Enrico

2015-01-01

Face recognition has several applications, including security, such as (authentication and identification of device users and criminal suspects), and in medicine (corrective surgery and diagnosis). Facial recognition programs rely on algorithms that can compare and compute the similarity between two sets of images. This eBook explains some of the similarity measures used in facial recognition systems in a single volume. Readers will learn about various measures including Minkowski distances, Mahalanobis distances, Hansdorff distances, cosine-based distances, among other methods. The book also summarizes errors that may occur in face recognition methods. Computer scientists "facing face" and looking to select and test different methods of computing similarities will benefit from this book. The book is also useful tool for students undertaking computer vision courses.

Why Social Relationships Are Important for Physical Health: A Systems Approach to Understanding and Modifying Risk and Protection.

Science.gov (United States)

Holt-Lunstad, Julianne

2018-01-04

Social relationships are adaptive and crucial for survival. This review presents existing evidence indicating that our social connections to others have powerful influences on health and longevity and that lacking social connection qualifies as a risk factor for premature mortality. A systems perspective is presented as a framework by which to move social connection into the realm of public health. Individuals, and health-relevant biological processes, exist within larger social contexts including the family, neighborhood and community, and society and culture. Applying the social ecological model, this review highlights the interrelationships of individuals within groups in terms of understanding both the causal mechanisms by which social connection influences physical health and the ways in which this influence can inform potential intervention strategies. A systems approach also helps identify gaps in our current understanding that may guide future research.

Similar effects of substance P on learning and memory function between hippocampus and striatal marginal division

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Yan; Zeng, Changchun; Shu, Siyun; Liu, Xuemei; Li, Chuhua

2014-01-01

Substance P is an endogenous neurokinin that is present in the central and peripheral nervous systems. The neuropeptide substance P and its high-affinity receptor neurokinin 1 receptor are known to play an important role in the central nervous system in inflammation, blood pressure, motor behavior and anxiety. The effects of substance P in the hippocampus and the marginal division of the striatum on memory remain poorly understood. Compared with the hippocampus as a control, immunofluorescence showed high expression of the substance P receptor, neurokinin 1, in the marginal division of the striatum of normal rats. Unilateral or bilateral injection of an antisense oligonucleotide against neurokinin 1 receptor mRNA in the rat hippocampus or marginal division of the striatum effectively reduced neurokinin 1 receptor expression. Independent of injection site, rats that received this antisense oligonucleotide showed obviously increased footshock times in a Y-maze test. These results indicate that the marginal division of the striatum plays a similar function in learning and memory to the hippocampus, which is a valuable addition to our mechanistic understanding of the learning and memory functions of the marginal division of the striatum. PMID:25206901

Estimation of Cross-Lingual News Similarities Using Text-Mining Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhouhao Wang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In this research, two estimation algorithms for extracting cross-lingual news pairs based on machine learning from financial news articles have been proposed. Every second, innumerable text data, including all kinds news, reports, messages, reviews, comments, and tweets are generated on the Internet, and these are written not only in English but also in other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French, etc. By taking advantage of multi-lingual text resources provided by Thomson Reuters News, we developed two estimation algorithms for extracting cross-lingual news pairs from multilingual text resources. In our first method, we propose a novel structure that uses the word information and the machine learning method effectively in this task. Simultaneously, we developed a bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM based method to calculate cross-lingual semantic text similarity for long text and short text, respectively. Thus, when an important news article is published, users can read similar news articles that are written in their native language using our method.

Comparative analysis of chemical similarity methods for modular natural products with a hypothetical structure enumeration algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Skinnider, Michael A; Dejong, Chris A; Franczak, Brian C; McNicholas, Paul D; Magarvey, Nathan A

2017-08-16

Natural products represent a prominent source of pharmaceutically and industrially important agents. Calculating the chemical similarity of two molecules is a central task in cheminformatics, with applications at multiple stages of the drug discovery pipeline. Quantifying the similarity of natural products is a particularly important problem, as the biological activities of these molecules have been extensively optimized by natural selection. The large and structurally complex scaffolds of natural products distinguish their physical and chemical properties from those of synthetic compounds. However, no analysis of the performance of existing methods for molecular similarity calculation specific to natural products has been reported to date. Here, we present LEMONS, an algorithm for the enumeration of hypothetical modular natural product structures. We leverage this algorithm to conduct a comparative analysis of molecular similarity methods within the unique chemical space occupied by modular natural products using controlled synthetic data, and comprehensively investigate the impact of diverse biosynthetic parameters on similarity search. We additionally investigate a recently described algorithm for natural product retrobiosynthesis and alignment, and find that when rule-based retrobiosynthesis can be applied, this approach outperforms conventional two-dimensional fingerprints, suggesting it may represent a valuable approach for the targeted exploration of natural product chemical space and microbial genome mining. Our open-source algorithm is an extensible method of enumerating hypothetical natural product structures with diverse potential applications in bioinformatics.

Why are estimates of global terrestrial isoprene emissions so similar (and why is this not so for monoterpenes?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Arneth

2008-08-01

Full Text Available Emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC are a chief uncertainty in calculating the burdens of important atmospheric compounds like tropospheric ozone or secondary organic aerosol, reflecting either imperfect chemical oxidation mechanisms or unreliable emission estimates, or both. To provide a starting point for a more systematic discussion we review here global isoprene and monoterpene emission estimates to-date. We note a surprisingly small variation in the predictions of global isoprene emission rate that is in stark contrast with our lack of process understanding and the small number of observations for model parameterisation and evaluation. Most of the models are based on similar emission algorithms, using fixed values for the emission capacity of various plant functional types. In some cases, these values are very similar but differ substantially in other models. The similarities with regard to the global isoprene emission rate would suggest that the dominant parameters driving the ultimate global estimate, and thus the dominant determinant of model sensitivity, are the specific emission algorithm and isoprene emission capacity. But the models also differ broadly with regard to their representation of net primary productivity, method of biome coverage determination and climate data. Contrary to isoprene, monoterpene estimates show significantly larger model-to-model variation although variation in terms of leaf algorithm, emission capacities, the way of model upscaling, vegetation cover or climatology used in terpene models are comparable to those used for isoprene. From our summary of published studies there appears to be no evidence that the terrestrial modelling community has been any more successful in "resolving unknowns" in the mechanisms that control global isoprene emissions, compared to global monoterpene emissions. Rather, the proliferation of common parameterization schemes within a large variety of model platforms

Estimation of flows cavitation by similarity test: application to the couple water/liquid sodium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Espanet, Laurent

2000-01-01

In many industrial flows, it is necessary to perform a similarity test to assess the cavitation intensity. The similarity laws must take into account the physical properties of the two fluids and especially the surface tension. To obtain such laws, a continuous description of the two-phase flow has been used. The non linear model of Cahn and Hilliard allows to obtain the equations of motion for these fluids, and non-dimensional conditions yield to the similarity laws. This method has been checked experimentally by achieving two different flows through a diaphragm. When respecting the similarity laws, the comparison of these flows allows to validate the transposition laws and to determine their associated tolerance. At last, the number of dusts and particles is an important parameter for cavitation inception threshold since it leads to the number of bubbles. Using the Laplace theory, it is shown that for each value of flow rate, it exists an upper bound value for the bubble density, which allows to establish a similarity law concerning this number of bubbles. (author) [fr

How should we understand the relationship between Internet and politics?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hoff, Jens Villiam; Bjerke, Flemming

) and Deibert (1997) as a centrepiece in the theoretical framework, and on the other hand by drawing on elements of sociological institutionalism. In this connection especially Hutchby's concept of media (the internet) as "communicative affordances" is found useful. However, in order to understand more...... precisely how the specific affordances of the internet is translated into specific political practices we need to understand how these practices are produced at the intersection between discourses, technology (hardware and software configurations) and institutions. Thus the main elements in the framework...... become discourses, practices/institutions and hardware/software. This framework has some similarity to the framework for understanding internet regulation and policies developed by Lessig (1999), but also has certain advantages over this framework. Also, the framework bear some resemblance...

Determinants of consumer understanding of health claims

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grunert, Klaus G; Scholderer, Joachim; Rogeaux, Michel

2011-01-01

as safe, risky or other. In addition to the open questions on claim understanding, respondents rated a number of statements on claim interpretation for agreement and completed scales on interest in healthy eating, attitude to functional foods, and subjective knowledge on food and health. Results showed......The new EU regulation on nutrition and health claims states that claims can be permitted only if they can be expected to be understood by consumers. Investigating determinants of consumer understanding of health claims has therefore become an important topic. Understanding of a health claim...... on a yoghurt product was investigated with a sample of 720 category users in Germany. Health claim understanding was measured using open answers, which were subsequently content analysed and classified by comparison with the scientific dossier of the health claim. Based on this respondents were classified...

The double-loop feedback for active learning with understanding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Hans Peter

2004-01-01

Learning is an active process, and in engineering education authentic projects is often used to activate the students and promote learning. However, it is not all activity that leads to deep learning; and in a rapid changing society deep understanding is necessary for life-long learning. Empirical...... findings at DTU question the direct link between high activity and a deep approach to learning. Active learning is important to obtain engineering competencies, but active learning requires more than activity. Feedback and reflection is crucial to the learning process, since new knowledge is built...... on the student’s existing understanding. A model for an active learning process with a double-loop feedback is suggested - the first loop gives the student experience through experimentation, the second conceptual understanding through reflection. Students often miss the second loop, so it is important...

Marketing/Sales Students' Understanding of What Counts as Sales

Science.gov (United States)

Hoshower, Leon; Gupta, Ashok K.

2009-01-01

Improper sales revenue recognition is the single largest issue contributing to financial restatements. Understanding and applying the rules of sales revenue recognition is not just an accounting problem; it is a marketing problem, too. Thus, it is important that the sales force has a basic understanding of the rules of sales recognition and be…

Understanding the importance of "symbolic interaction stigma": How expectations about the reactions of others adds to the burden of mental illness stigma.

Science.gov (United States)

Link, Bruce G; Wells, Jennifer; Phelan, Jo C; Yang, Lawrence

2015-06-01

Important components of stigma include imagining what others might think of a stigmatized status, anticipating what might transpire in an interaction with others, and rehearsing what one might do if something untoward occurs. These imagined relations are here called symbolic interaction stigma and can have an impact even if the internalization of negative stereotypes fails to occur. Concepts and measures that capture symbolic interaction stigma are introduced, and a preliminary assessment of their impact is provided. Four self-report measures of symbolic interaction stigma (perceived devaluation discrimination, anticipation of rejection, stigma consciousness, and concern with staying in) were developed or adapted and administered to a sample of individuals who have experienced mental illness (N = 65). Regression analyses examined whether forms of symbolic interaction stigma were associated with withdrawal, self-esteem, and isolation from relatives independent of measures of internalization of stigma and rejection experiences. As evidenced by scores on 4 distinct measures, symbolic interaction stigma was relatively common in the sample, somewhat more common than the internalization of stigma. In addition, measures of symbolic interaction stigma were significantly associated with withdrawal, self-esteem, and isolation from relatives even when a measure of the internalization of stigma was statistically controlled. The study suggests the potential importance of considering symbolic interaction forms of stigma in understanding and addressing stigma and its consequences. Being aware of symbolic interaction stigma could be useful in enhancing rehabilitation goals if an approach to counteracting the negative effects of these aspects of stigma can be developed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Identifying mechanistic similarities in drug responses

KAUST Repository

Zhao, C.

2012-05-15

Motivation: In early drug development, it would be beneficial to be able to identify those dynamic patterns of gene response that indicate that drugs targeting a particular gene will be likely or not to elicit the desired response. One approach would be to quantitate the degree of similarity between the responses that cells show when exposed to drugs, so that consistencies in the regulation of cellular response processes that produce success or failure can be more readily identified.Results: We track drug response using fluorescent proteins as transcription activity reporters. Our basic assumption is that drugs inducing very similar alteration in transcriptional regulation will produce similar temporal trajectories on many of the reporter proteins and hence be identified as having similarities in their mechanisms of action (MOA). The main body of this work is devoted to characterizing similarity in temporal trajectories/signals. To do so, we must first identify the key points that determine mechanistic similarity between two drug responses. Directly comparing points on the two signals is unrealistic, as it cannot handle delays and speed variations on the time axis. Hence, to capture the similarities between reporter responses, we develop an alignment algorithm that is robust to noise, time delays and is able to find all the contiguous parts of signals centered about a core alignment (reflecting a core mechanism in drug response). Applying the proposed algorithm to a range of real drug experiments shows that the result agrees well with the prior drug MOA knowledge. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

A path-based measurement for human miRNA functional similarities using miRNA-disease associations

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Pingjian; Luo, Jiawei; Xiao, Qiu; Chen, Xiangtao

2016-09-01

Compared with the sequence and expression similarity, miRNA functional similarity is so important for biology researches and many applications such as miRNA clustering, miRNA function prediction, miRNA synergism identification and disease miRNA prioritization. However, the existing methods always utilized the predicted miRNA target which has high false positive and false negative to calculate the miRNA functional similarity. Meanwhile, it is difficult to achieve high reliability of miRNA functional similarity with miRNA-disease associations. Therefore, it is increasingly needed to improve the measurement of miRNA functional similarity. In this study, we develop a novel path-based calculation method of miRNA functional similarity based on miRNA-disease associations, called MFSP. Compared with other methods, our method obtains higher average functional similarity of intra-family and intra-cluster selected groups. Meanwhile, the lower average functional similarity of inter-family and inter-cluster miRNA pair is obtained. In addition, the smaller p-value is achieved, while applying Wilcoxon rank-sum test and Kruskal-Wallis test to different miRNA groups. The relationship between miRNA functional similarity and other information sources is exhibited. Furthermore, the constructed miRNA functional network based on MFSP is a scale-free and small-world network. Moreover, the higher AUC for miRNA-disease prediction indicates the ability of MFSP uncovering miRNA functional similarity.

Why Are Omics Technologies Important to Understanding the Role of Nutrition in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lynnette R. Ferguson

2016-10-01

Full Text Available For many years, there has been confusion about the role that nutrition plays in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD. It is apparent that good dietary advice for one individual may prove inappropriate for another. As with many diseases, genome-wide association studies across large collaborative groups have been important in revealing the role of genetics in IBD, with more than 200 genes associated with susceptibility to the disease. These associations provide clues to explain the differences in nutrient requirements among individuals. In addition to genes directly involved in the control of inflammation, a number of the associated genes play roles in modulating the gut microbiota. Cell line models enable the generation of hypotheses as to how various bioactive dietary components might be especially beneficial for certain genetic groups. Animal models are necessary to mimic aspects of the complex aetiology of IBD, and provide an important link between tissue culture studies and human trials. Once we are sufficiently confident of our hypotheses, we can then take modified diets to an IBD population that is stratified according to genotype. Studies in IBD patients fed a Mediterranean-style diet have been important in validating our hypotheses and as a proof-of-principle for the application of these sensitive omics technologies to aiding in the control of IBD symptoms.

Using sequence similarity networks for visualization of relationships across diverse protein superfamilies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Holly J Atkinson

Full Text Available The dramatic increase in heterogeneous types of biological data--in particular, the abundance of new protein sequences--requires fast and user-friendly methods for organizing this information in a way that enables functional inference. The most widely used strategy to link sequence or structure to function, homology-based function prediction, relies on the fundamental assumption that sequence or structural similarity implies functional similarity. New tools that extend this approach are still urgently needed to associate sequence data with biological information in ways that accommodate the real complexity of the problem, while being accessible to experimental as well as computational biologists. To address this, we have examined the application of sequence similarity networks for visualizing functional trends across protein superfamilies from the context of sequence similarity. Using three large groups of homologous proteins of varying types of structural and functional diversity--GPCRs and kinases from humans, and the crotonase superfamily of enzymes--we show that overlaying networks with orthogonal information is a powerful approach for observing functional themes and revealing outliers. In comparison to other primary methods, networks provide both a good representation of group-wise sequence similarity relationships and a strong visual and quantitative correlation with phylogenetic trees, while enabling analysis and visualization of much larger sets of sequences than trees or multiple sequence alignments can easily accommodate. We also define important limitations and caveats in the application of these networks. As a broadly accessible and effective tool for the exploration of protein superfamilies, sequence similarity networks show great potential for generating testable hypotheses about protein structure-function relationships.

Using sequence similarity networks for visualization of relationships across diverse protein superfamilies.

Science.gov (United States)

Atkinson, Holly J; Morris, John H; Ferrin, Thomas E; Babbitt, Patricia C

2009-01-01

The dramatic increase in heterogeneous types of biological data--in particular, the abundance of new protein sequences--requires fast and user-friendly methods for organizing this information in a way that enables functional inference. The most widely used strategy to link sequence or structure to function, homology-based function prediction, relies on the fundamental assumption that sequence or structural similarity implies functional similarity. New tools that extend this approach are still urgently needed to associate sequence data with biological information in ways that accommodate the real complexity of the problem, while being accessible to experimental as well as computational biologists. To address this, we have examined the application of sequence similarity networks for visualizing functional trends across protein superfamilies from the context of sequence similarity. Using three large groups of homologous proteins of varying types of structural and functional diversity--GPCRs and kinases from humans, and the crotonase superfamily of enzymes--we show that overlaying networks with orthogonal information is a powerful approach for observing functional themes and revealing outliers. In comparison to other primary methods, networks provide both a good representation of group-wise sequence similarity relationships and a strong visual and quantitative correlation with phylogenetic trees, while enabling analysis and visualization of much larger sets of sequences than trees or multiple sequence alignments can easily accommodate. We also define important limitations and caveats in the application of these networks. As a broadly accessible and effective tool for the exploration of protein superfamilies, sequence similarity networks show great potential for generating testable hypotheses about protein structure-function relationships.

Survey on Sentence Similarity Evaluation using Deep Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Ramaprabha, J.; Das, Sayan; Mukerjee, Pronay

2018-04-01

Two questions asking the same thing can have di erent set of vocabulary set and syntactic structure. Which makes detecting the semantics equivalence between the sentences challenging. In online user forums like Quora, Stack Over ow, Stack Exchange, etc. its important to maintain high quality knowledge base by ensuring each unique question exists only once. Writers shouldn't have to write the same answer to each of the similar question and the reader must get a single page of the question they are looking for. For example, consider questions like What are the best ways to lose weight?, How can a person reduce weight?, and What are elective weight loss plans? to be duplicate questions because they all have the same intent.

Older Norwegians' understanding of loneliness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Solveig Hauge

2010-02-01

Full Text Available This interpretive study explored older people's understanding of loneliness and what they considered appropriate and effective ways of dealing with it. Thirty elderly people were interviewed in-depth; 12 described themselves as “lonely” and 18 as “not lonely.” We found a striking difference in the way “lonely” and “not lonely” people talked about loneliness. The “not lonely” participants described loneliness as painful, caused by the person's negative way of behaving and a state they should pull themselves out of. The “lonely” participants also described loneliness as painful, and gave more detailed descriptions of loneliness as disconnection from others, from their former home and from today's society. The “lonely” participants were more reserved and subdued in trying to explain loneliness, attributing it partly to themselves, but mostly to the lack of social contact with important others. Some felt able to handle their loneliness, while others felt unable to cope. This study underlines the importance of subjective experiences in trying to understand a phenomenon like loneliness and of developing support for lonely older people unable to cope on their own.

Training of Tonal Similarity Ratings in Non-Musicians: A “Rapid Learning” Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Oechslin, Mathias S.; Läge, Damian; Vitouch, Oliver

2012-01-01

Although cognitive music psychology has a long tradition of expert–novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based “rapid learning” paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, intended to display mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for learning research in music and other domains. Results are discussed in the context of the “giftedness” debate. PMID:22629252

Defining Conceptual Understanding in General Chemistry

Science.gov (United States)

Holme, Thomas A.; Luxford, Cynthia J.; Brandriet, Alexandra

2015-01-01

Among the many possible goals that instructors have for students in general chemistry, the idea that they will better understand the conceptual underpinnings of the science is certainly important. Nonetheless, identifying with clarity what exemplifies student success at achieving this goal is hindered by the challenge of clearly articulating what…

Similarity indices I: what do they measure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnston, J.W.

1976-11-01

A method for estimating the effects of environmental effusions on ecosystems is described. The characteristics of 25 similarity indices used in studies of ecological communities were investigated. The type of data structure, to which these indices are frequently applied, was described as consisting of vectors of measurements on attributes (species) observed in a set of samples. A general similarity index was characterized as the result of a two-step process defined on a pair of vectors. In the first step an attribute similarity score is obtained for each attribute by comparing the attribute values observed in the pair of vectors. The result is a vector of attribute similarity scores. These are combined in the second step to arrive at the similarity index. The operation in the first step was characterized as a function, g, defined on pairs of attribute values. The second operation was characterized as a function, F, defined on the vector of attribute similarity scores from the first step. Usually, F was a simple sum or weighted sum of the attribute similarity scores. It is concluded that similarity indices should not be used as the test statistic to discriminate between two ecological communities

Similarity indices I: what do they measure.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Johnston, J.W.

1976-11-01

A method for estimating the effects of environmental effusions on ecosystems is described. The characteristics of 25 similarity indices used in studies of ecological communities were investigated. The type of data structure, to which these indices are frequently applied, was described as consisting of vectors of measurements on attributes (species) observed in a set of samples. A general similarity index was characterized as the result of a two-step process defined on a pair of vectors. In the first step an attribute similarity score is obtained for each attribute by comparing the attribute values observed in the pair of vectors. The result is a vector of attribute similarity scores. These are combined in the second step to arrive at the similarity index. The operation in the first step was characterized as a function, g, defined on pairs of attribute values. The second operation was characterized as a function, F, defined on the vector of attribute similarity scores from the first step. Usually, F was a simple sum or weighted sum of the attribute similarity scores. It is concluded that similarity indices should not be used as the test statistic to discriminate between two ecological communities.

Biaxial fatigue of metals the present understanding

CERN Document Server

Schijve, Jaap

2016-01-01

Problems of fatigue under multiaxial fatigue loads have been addressed in a very large number of research publications. The present publication is primarily a survey of biaxial fatigue under constant amplitude loading on metal specimens. It starts with the physical understanding of the fatigue phenomenon under biaxial fatigue loads. Various types of proportional and non-proportional biaxial fatigue loads and biaxial stress distributions in a material are specified. Attention is paid to the fatigue limit, crack nucleation, initial micro crack growth and subsequent macro-crack in different modes of crack growth. The interference between the upper and lower surfaces of a fatigue crack is discussed. Possibilities for predictions of biaxial fatigue properties are analysed with reference to the similarity concept. The significance of the present understanding for structural design problems is considered. The book is completed with a summary of major observations.

Invisible Misconceptions: Student Understanding of Ultraviolet and Infrared Radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Libarkin, Julie C.; Asghar, Anila; Crockett, C.; Sadler, Philip

2011-01-01

The importance of nonvisible wavelengths for the study of astronomy suggests that student understanding of nonvisible light is an important consideration in astronomy classrooms. Questionnaires, interviews, and panel discussions were used to investigate 6-12 student and teacher conceptions of ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR). Alternative…

Understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven C. Hertler

2013-08-01

Full Text Available With the ultimate goal of better understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD, the present work is a review and critique of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., DSM-IV diagnostic criteria at the end of their 18 years of use. Problems of specificity (polythetic criteria and failure to employ a hallmark feature make OCPD an indistinct diagnostic category that consequently contains a plurality of types. Problems of sensitivity (missing elements and concrete expression of signs make it more difficult to cull OCPD persons from the population at large. Collectively, these problems of specificity and sensitivity have undermined the efficiency of the DSM-IV criteria set; but more importantly, these problems continue to distort the clinical understanding of OCPD generally.

Understanding Ebola: the 2014 epidemic.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaner, Jolie; Schaack, Sarah

2016-09-13

Near the end of 2013, an outbreak of Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) began in Guinea, subsequently spreading to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. As this epidemic grew, important public health questions emerged about how and why this outbreak was so different from previous episodes. This review provides a synthetic synopsis of the 2014-15 outbreak, with the aim of understanding its unprecedented spread. We present a summary of the history of previous epidemics, describe the structure and genetics of the ebolavirus, and review our current understanding of viral vectors and the latest treatment practices. We conclude with an analysis of the public health challenges epidemic responders faced and some of the lessons that could be applied to future outbreaks of Ebola or other viruses.

Similarity in Bilateral Isolated Internal Orbital Fractures.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Hung-Chang; Cox, Jacob T; Sanyal, Abanti; Mahoney, Nicholas R

2018-04-13

In evaluating patients sustaining bilateral isolated internal orbital fractures, the authors have observed both similar fracture locations and also similar expansion of orbital volumes. In this study, we aim to investigate if there is a propensity for the 2 orbits to fracture in symmetrically similar patterns when sustaining similar trauma. A retrospective chart review was performed studying all cases at our institution of bilateral isolated internal orbital fractures involving the medial wall and/or the floor at the time of presentation. The similarity of the bilateral fracture locations was evaluated using the Fisher's exact test. The bilateral expanded orbital volumes were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to assess for orbital volume similarity. Twenty-four patients with bilateral internal orbital fractures were analyzed for fracture location similarity. Seventeen patients (70.8%) had 100% concordance in the orbital subregion fractured, and the association between the right and the left orbital fracture subregion locations was statistically significant (P < 0.0001). Fifteen patients were analyzed for orbital volume similarity. The average orbital cavity volume was 31.2 ± 3.8 cm on the right and 32.0 ± 3.7 cm on the left. There was a statistically significant difference between right and left orbital cavity volumes (P = 0.0026). The data from this study suggest that an individual who suffers isolated bilateral internal orbital fractures has a statistically significant similarity in the location of their orbital fractures. However, there does not appear to be statistically significant similarity in the expansion of the orbital volumes in these patients.

Personality similarity and life satisfaction in couples

OpenAIRE

Furler Katrin; Gomez Veronica; Grob Alexander

2013-01-01

The present study examined the association between personality similarity and life satisfaction in a large nationally representative sample of 1608 romantic couples. Similarity effects were computed for the Big Five personality traits as well as for personality profiles with global and differentiated indices of similarity. Results showed substantial actor and partner effects indicating that both partners' personality traits were related to both partners' life satisfaction. Personality similar...

Political oil import diversification by financial and commercial traders

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kashcheeva, Mila; Tsui, Kevin K.

2015-01-01

International politics affects the oil trade. But do financial and commercial traders who participate in spot oil trading also respond to changes in international politics? We construct a firm-level dataset for all U.S. oil-importing companies over 1986–2008 to examine how these firms respond to increases in “political distance” between the U.S. and her trading partners, measured by divergence in their UN General Assembly voting patterns. Consistent with previous macro evidence, we first show that individual firms diversify their oil imports politically, even after controlling for unobserved firm heterogeneity. However, the political pattern of oil imports is not entirely driven by the concerns of hold-up risks, which exist when oil transactions via term contracts are associated with backward vertical FDI that is subject to expropriation. In particular, our results indicate that even financial and commercial traders significantly reduce their oil imports from U.S. political enemies. Interestingly, while these traders diversify their oil imports politically immediately after changes in international politics, other oil companies reduce their oil imports with a significant time lag. Our findings suggest that in designing regulations to avoid harmful repercussions on commodity and financial assets, policymakers need to understand the nature of political risk. -- Highlights: •American firms diversify their oil imports politically. •Financial and commercial traders diversify their oil imports politically immediately. •Other oil companies reduce their oil imports with a significant time lag. •Policymakers need to understand the nature of political risk

How Primary Teacher Teams Understand the Team Protocol in Ohio

Science.gov (United States)

Willoughby, Julie

2016-01-01

Teacher teams can be more effective when protocols are used in their entirety; and because of this, use of and understanding Ohio's five-step process is important (Gallimore, Ermeling, Saunders & Goldenberg, 2009, Saunders, Goldenberg & Gallimore, 2009, and Schwaenberger & Ahearn, 2013). This study explored the understanding of…

Vascular legacy: HOPE ADVANCEs to EMPA-REG and LEADER: A Surprising similarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sanjay Kalra

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Recently reported cardiovascular outcome studies on empagliflozin (EMPA-REG and liraglutide (LEADER have spurred interest in this field of diabetology. This commentary compares and contrasts these studies with two equally important outcome trials conducted using blood pressure lowering agents. A comparison with MICROHOPE (using ramipril and ADVANCE (using perindopril + indapamide blood pressure arms throws up interesting facts. The degree of blood pressure lowering, dissociation between cardiovascular and cerebrovascular benefits, and discordance between renal and retinal outcomes are surprisingly similar in these trials, conducted using disparate molecules. The time taken to achieve such benefits is similar for all drugs except empagliflozin. Such discussion helps inform rational and evidence-based choice of therapy and forms the framework for future research.

Family victim advocates: the importance of critical job duties

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Teresa H. Young

Full Text Available Child advocacy centers across the United States intervened in more than 250,000 child abuse cases in 2011(National Children's Alliance, 2012. Understanding the work of family victim advocates is imperative to helping children and families in child abuse cases. In this exploratory study, we surveyed advocates and program directors from child advocacy centers (CACs across the United States to compare their perceptions of the critical job duties of family victim advocates. Data analysis revealed that CAC directors rated the importance of these duties significantly higher than family victim advocates. Results suggest the need for additional training to ensure that family victim advocates understand the importance of critical job duties to meet the needs of children and families in child abuse cases.

Similarity analysis between chromosomes of Homo sapiens and monkeys with correlation coefficient, rank correlation coefficient and cosine similarity measures.

Science.gov (United States)

Someswara Rao, Chinta; Viswanadha Raju, S

2016-03-01

In this paper, we consider correlation coefficient, rank correlation coefficient and cosine similarity measures for evaluating similarity between Homo sapiens and monkeys. We used DNA chromosomes of genome wide genes to determine the correlation between the chromosomal content and evolutionary relationship. The similarity among the H. sapiens and monkeys is measured for a total of 210 chromosomes related to 10 species. The similarity measures of these different species show the relationship between the H. sapiens and monkey. This similarity will be helpful at theft identification, maternity identification, disease identification, etc.

Similarity-based pattern analysis and recognition

CERN Document Server

Pelillo, Marcello

2013-01-01

This accessible text/reference presents a coherent overview of the emerging field of non-Euclidean similarity learning. The book presents a broad range of perspectives on similarity-based pattern analysis and recognition methods, from purely theoretical challenges to practical, real-world applications. The coverage includes both supervised and unsupervised learning paradigms, as well as generative and discriminative models. Topics and features: explores the origination and causes of non-Euclidean (dis)similarity measures, and how they influence the performance of traditional classification alg

UPF201 Archaeal Specific Family Members Reveals Structural Similarity to RNA-Binding Proteins but Low Likelihood for RNA-Binding Function

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rao, K.N.; Swaminathan, S.; Burley, S. K.

2008-12-11

We have determined X-ray crystal structures of four members of an archaeal specific family of proteins of unknown function (UPF0201; Pfam classification: DUF54) to advance our understanding of the genetic repertoire of archaea. Despite low pairwise amino acid sequence identities (10-40%) and the absence of conserved sequence motifs, the three-dimensional structures of these proteins are remarkably similar to one another. Their common polypeptide chain fold, encompassing a five-stranded antiparallel {beta}-sheet and five {alpha}-helices, proved to be quite unexpectedly similar to that of the RRM-type RNA-binding domain of the ribosomal L5 protein, which is responsible for binding the 5S- rRNA. Structure-based sequence alignments enabled construction of a phylogenetic tree relating UPF0201 family members to L5 ribosomal proteins and other structurally similar RNA binding proteins, thereby expanding our understanding of the evolutionary purview of the RRM superfamily. Analyses of the surfaces of these newly determined UPF0201 structures suggest that they probably do not function as RNA binding proteins, and that this domain specific family of proteins has acquired a novel function in archaebacteria, which awaits experimental elucidation.

Towards a systems understanding of plant-microbe interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akira eMine

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Plants are closely associated with microorganisms including pathogens and mutualists that influence plant fitness. Molecular genetic approaches have uncovered a number of signaling components from both plants and microbes and their mode of actions. However, signaling pathways are highly interconnected and influenced by diverse sets of environmental factors. Therefore, it is important to have systems views in order to understand the true nature of plant-microbe interactions. Indeed, systems biology approaches have revealed previously overlooked or misinterpreted properties of the plant immune signaling network. Experimental reconstruction of biological networks using exhaustive combinatorial mutants is particularly powerful to elucidate network structure and properties and relationships among network components. Recent advances in metagenomics of microbial communities associated with plants further point to the importance of systems approaches and open a research area of microbial community reconstruction. In this review, we highlight the importance of a systems understanding of plant-microbe interactions, with a special emphasis on reconstruction strategies.

Inference-Based Similarity Search in Randomized Montgomery Domains for Privacy-Preserving Biometric Identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yi; Wan, Jianwu; Guo, Jun; Cheung, Yiu-Ming; C Yuen, Pong

2017-07-14

Similarity search is essential to many important applications and often involves searching at scale on high-dimensional data based on their similarity to a query. In biometric applications, recent vulnerability studies have shown that adversarial machine learning can compromise biometric recognition systems by exploiting the biometric similarity information. Existing methods for biometric privacy protection are in general based on pairwise matching of secured biometric templates and have inherent limitations in search efficiency and scalability. In this paper, we propose an inference-based framework for privacy-preserving similarity search in Hamming space. Our approach builds on an obfuscated distance measure that can conceal Hamming distance in a dynamic interval. Such a mechanism enables us to systematically design statistically reliable methods for retrieving most likely candidates without knowing the exact distance values. We further propose to apply Montgomery multiplication for generating search indexes that can withstand adversarial similarity analysis, and show that information leakage in randomized Montgomery domains can be made negligibly small. Our experiments on public biometric datasets demonstrate that the inference-based approach can achieve a search accuracy close to the best performance possible with secure computation methods, but the associated cost is reduced by orders of magnitude compared to cryptographic primitives.

The Importance of the Medical Record: A Critical Professional Responsibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Ngo, Elizabeth; Patel, Nachiket; Chandrasekaran, Krishnaswamy; Tajik, A Jamil; Paterick, Timothy E

2016-01-01

Comprehensive, detailed documentation in the medical record is critical to patient care and to a physician when allegations of negligence arise. Physicians, therefore, would be prudent to have a clear understanding of this documentation. It is important to understand who is responsible for documentation, what is important to document, when to document, and how to document. Additionally, it should be understood who owns the medical record, the significance of the transition to the electronic medical record, problems and pitfalls when using the electronic medical record, and how the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act affects healthcare providers and health information technology.

The importance of thermal behaviour and petrographic composition for understanding the characteristics of a Portuguese perhydrous Jurassic coal

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Costa, A. [Centro de Geologia, Universidade do Porto (Portugal); Flores, D. [Centro de Geologia, Universidade do Porto (Portugal); Departamento de Geociencias, Ambiente e Ordenamento do Territorio, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade do Porto (Portugal); Suarez-Ruiz, I.; Pevida, C.; Rubiera, F. [Instituto Nacional del Carbon, (INCAR-CSIC), Oviedo (Spain); Iglesias, M.J. [Area de Quimica Organica, Universidad de Almeria (Spain)

2010-12-01

The perhydrous Batalha coal (Portugal) is found in the Cabacos and Montejunto Formation of the Oxfordian-Kimeridgian, Upper Jurassic age. From the macroscopic point of view, its appearance is similar to other perhydrous coals. Microscopically, the maceral group of huminite is the main organic component (96%), ulminite being the most important petrographic component, followed by textinite with resinite (4%) lumina filled. The huminite random reflectance is 0.33%. This coal is characterized by high H/C atomic ratio, and anomalous physical and chemical properties that are characteristic of perhydrous coals such as: (i) the absence of any correlation between reflectance and the chemical rank parameters; (ii) a lower real density than that of non-perhydrous coals; (iii) a high hydrogen content; and (iv) suppressed reflectance. Using its calorific value (moist, ash-free basis) as rank parameter, Batalha coal must be considered a subbituminous A coal. Hydrogen enrichment due to the presence of resinite has influenced the technological properties of this coal, namely: (i) reduction of the thermostability and decrease in the temperature of initial thermal decomposition due to, among other reasons, the existence of aliphatic structures with low dissociation energy bonds resulting from the presence of resinite; (ii) from the DTG profile, the volatile matter combustion and char combustion is not evident; (iii) development of chars made up of isotropic particles with angular edges, which is typical of a low rank coal; (iv) the evolution trend of gaseous compounds (CO, CO{sub 2} and CH{sub 4}) during pyrolysis; and, (v) an increase in its calorific value due to its hydrogen content. The study of this coal which is interbedded in Jurassic formations in the Lusitanian Basin of Portugal is a new contribution to the assessment of the evolution of organic matter in this area. (author)

Understanding terminological systems. I: Terminology and typology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Keizer, N. F.; Abu-Hanna, A.; Zwetsloot-Schonk, J. H.

2000-01-01

Terminological systems are an important research issue within the field of medical informatics. For precise understanding of existing terminological systems a referential framework is needed that provides a uniform terminology and typology of terminological systems themselves. In this article a

Characterization of self-similarity properties of turbulence in magnetized plasmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scipioni, A.; Rischette, P.; Bonhomme, G.; Devynck, P.

2008-01-01

The understanding of turbulence in magnetized plasmas and its role in the cross field transport is still greatly incomplete. Several previous works reported on evidences of long-time correlations compatible with an avalanche-type of radial transport. Persistence properties in time records have been deduced from high values of the Hurst exponent obtained with the rescaled range R/S analysis applied to experimental probe data acquired in the edge of tokamaks. In this paper the limitations of this R/S method, in particular when applied to signals having mixed statistics are investigated, and the great advantages of the wavelets decomposition as a tool to characterize the self-similarity properties of experimental signals are highlighted. Furthermore the analysis of modified simulated fractional Brownian motions (fBm) and fractional Gaussian noises (fGn) allows us to discuss the relationship between high values of the Hurst exponent and long range correlations. It is shown that for such simulated signals with mixed statistics persistence at large time scales can still reflect the self-similarity properties of the original fBm and do not imply the existence of long range correlations, which are destroyed. It is thus questionable to assert the existence of long range correlations for experimental signals with non-Gaussian and mixed statistics just from high values of the Hurst exponent.

Analysis of network motifs in cellular regulation: Structural similarities, input-output relations and signal integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Straube, Ronny

2017-12-01

Much of the complexity of regulatory networks derives from the necessity to integrate multiple signals and to avoid malfunction due to cross-talk or harmful perturbations. Hence, one may expect that the input-output behavior of larger networks is not necessarily more complex than that of smaller network motifs which suggests that both can, under certain conditions, be described by similar equations. In this review, we illustrate this approach by discussing the similarities that exist in the steady state descriptions of a simple bimolecular reaction, covalent modification cycles and bacterial two-component systems. Interestingly, in all three systems fundamental input-output characteristics such as thresholds, ultrasensitivity or concentration robustness are described by structurally similar equations. Depending on the system the meaning of the parameters can differ ranging from protein concentrations and affinity constants to complex parameter combinations which allows for a quantitative understanding of signal integration in these systems. We argue that this approach may also be extended to larger regulatory networks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cholera and Shigellosis: Different Epidemiology but Similar Responses to Climate Variability

Science.gov (United States)

Cash, Benjamin A.; Rodó, Xavier; Emch, Michael; Yunus, Md.; Faruque, Abu S. G.; Pascual, Mercedes

2014-01-01

Background Comparative studies of the associations between different infectious diseases and climate variability, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, are lacking. Diarrheal illnesses, particularly cholera and shigellosis, provide an important opportunity to apply a comparative approach. Cholera and shigellosis have significant global mortality and morbidity burden, pronounced differences in transmission pathways and pathogen ecologies, and there is an established climate link with cholera. In particular, the specific ecology of Vibrio cholerae is often invoked to explain the sensitivity of that disease to climate. Methods and Findings The extensive surveillance data of the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh are used here to revisit the known associations between cholera and climate, and to address their similarity to previously unexplored patterns for shigellosis. Monthly case data for both the city of Dhaka and a rural area known as Matlab are analyzed with respect to their association with El Niño and flooding. Linear correlations are examined between flooding and cumulative cases, as well as for flooding and El Niño. Rank-correlation maps are also computed between disease cases in the post-monsoon epidemic season and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific. Similar climate associations are found for both diseases and both locations. Increased cases follow increased monsoon flooding and increased sea surface temperatures in the preceding winter corresponding to an El Niño event. Conclusions The similarity in association patterns suggests a systemic breakdown in population health with changing environmental conditions, in which climate variability acts primarily through increasing the exposure risk of the human population. We discuss these results in the context of the on-going debate on the relative importance of the environmental reservoir vs. secondary transmission, as well as the implications for the use of El Niño as an

Understanding Initial Undergraduate Expectations and Identity in Computing Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Kinnunen, Päivi; Butler, Matthew; Morgan, Michael; Nylen, Aletta; Peters, Anne-Kathrin; Sinclair, Jane; Kalvala, Sara; Pesonen, Erkki

2018-01-01

There is growing appreciation of the importance of understanding the student perspective in Higher Education (HE) at both institutional and international levels. This is particularly important in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects such as Computer Science (CS) and Engineering in which industry needs are high but so are…

Humans, geometric similarity and the Froude number: is ''reasonably close'' really close enough?

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Kramer, Patricia Ann; Sylvester, Adam D

2013-02-15

Understanding locomotor energetics is imperative, because energy expended during locomotion, a requisite feature of primate subsistence, is lost to reproduction. Although metabolic energy expenditure can only be measured in extant species, using the equations of motion to calculate mechanical energy expenditure offers unlimited opportunities to explore energy expenditure, particularly in extinct species on which empirical experimentation is impossible. Variability, either within or between groups, can manifest as changes in size and/or shape. Isometric scaling (or geometric similarity) requires that all dimensions change equally among all individuals, a condition that will not be met in naturally developing populations. The Froude number (Fr), with lower limb (or hindlimb) length as the characteristic length, has been used to compensate for differences in size, but does not account for differences in shape.To determine whether or not shape matters at the intraspecific level, we used a mechanical model that had properties that mimic human variation in shape. We varied crural index and limb segment circumferences (and consequently, mass and inertial parameters) among nine populations that included 19 individuals that were of different size. Our goal in the current work is to understand whether shape variation changes mechanical energy sufficiently enough to make shape a critical factor in mechanical and metabolic energy assessments.Our results reaffirm that size does not affect mass-specific mechanical cost of transport (Alexander and Jayes, 1983) among geometrically similar individuals walking at equal Fr. The known shape differences among modern humans, however, produce sufficiently large differences in internal and external work to account for much of the observed variation in metabolic energy expenditure, if mechanical energy is correlated with metabolic energy. Any species or other group that exhibits shape differences should be affected similarly to that which

Large margin classification with indefinite similarities

KAUST Repository

Alabdulmohsin, Ibrahim; Cisse, Moustapha; Gao, Xin; Zhang, Xiangliang

2016-01-01

Classification with indefinite similarities has attracted attention in the machine learning community. This is partly due to the fact that many similarity functions that arise in practice are not symmetric positive semidefinite, i.e. the Mercer

Engaging narratives evoke similar neural activity and lead to similar time perception.

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Cohen, Samantha S; Henin, Simon; Parra, Lucas C

2017-07-04

It is said that we lose track of time - that "time flies" - when we are engrossed in a story. How does engagement with the story cause this distorted perception of time, and what are its neural correlates? People commit both time and attentional resources to an engaging stimulus. For narrative videos, attentional engagement can be represented as the level of similarity between the electroencephalographic responses of different viewers. Here we show that this measure of neural engagement predicted the duration of time that viewers were willing to commit to narrative videos. Contrary to popular wisdom, engagement did not distort the average perception of time duration. Rather, more similar brain responses resulted in a more uniform perception of time across viewers. These findings suggest that by capturing the attention of an audience, narrative videos bring both neural processing and the subjective perception of time into synchrony.

Notions of similarity for computational biology models

KAUST Repository

Waltemath, Dagmar

2016-03-21

Computational models used in biology are rapidly increasing in complexity, size, and numbers. To build such large models, researchers need to rely on software tools for model retrieval, model combination, and version control. These tools need to be able to quantify the differences and similarities between computational models. However, depending on the specific application, the notion of similarity may greatly vary. A general notion of model similarity, applicable to various types of models, is still missing. Here, we introduce a general notion of quantitative model similarities, survey the use of existing model comparison methods in model building and management, and discuss potential applications of model comparison. To frame model comparison as a general problem, we describe a theoretical approach to defining and computing similarities based on different model aspects. Potentially relevant aspects of a model comprise its references to biological entities, network structure, mathematical equations and parameters, and dynamic behaviour. Future similarity measures could combine these model aspects in flexible, problem-specific ways in order to mimic users\\' intuition about model similarity, and to support complex model searches in databases.

Self-similarity in incompressible Navier-Stokes equations.

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Ercan, Ali; Kavvas, M Levent

2015-12-01

The self-similarity conditions of the 3-dimensional (3D) incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are obtained by utilizing one-parameter Lie group of point scaling transformations. It is found that the scaling exponents of length dimensions in i = 1, 2, 3 coordinates in 3-dimensions are not arbitrary but equal for the self-similarity of 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. It is also shown that the self-similarity in this particular flow process can be achieved in different time and space scales when the viscosity of the fluid is also scaled in addition to other flow variables. In other words, the self-similarity of Navier-Stokes equations is achievable under different fluid environments in the same or different gravity conditions. Self-similarity criteria due to initial and boundary conditions are also presented. Utilizing the proposed self-similarity conditions of the 3D hydrodynamic flow process, the value of a flow variable at a specified time and space can be scaled to a corresponding value in a self-similar domain at the corresponding time and space.

Notions of similarity for computational biology models