949 research outputs found

    Content-Based Video Retrieval in Historical Collections of the German Broadcasting Archive

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    The German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) maintains the cultural heritage of radio and television broadcasts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The uniqueness and importance of the video material stimulates a large scientific interest in the video content. In this paper, we present an automatic video analysis and retrieval system for searching in historical collections of GDR television recordings. It consists of video analysis algorithms for shot boundary detection, concept classification, person recognition, text recognition and similarity search. The performance of the system is evaluated from a technical and an archival perspective on 2,500 hours of GDR television recordings.Comment: TPDL 2016, Hannover, Germany. Final version is available at Springer via DO

    A Metastasis or a Second Independent Cancer? Evaluating the Clonal Origin of Tumors Using Array-CGH Data

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    When a cancer patient develops a new tumor it is necessary to determine if this is a recurrence (metastasis) of the original cancer, or an entirely new occurrence of the disease. This is accomplished by assessing the histo-pathology of the lesions, and it is frequently relatively straightforward. However, there are many clinical scenarios in which this pathological diagnosis is difficult. Since each tumor is characterized by a genetic fingerprint of somatic mutations, a more definitive diagnosis is possible in principle in these difficult clinical scenarios by comparing the fingerprints. In this article we develop and evaluate a statistical strategy for this comparison when the data are derived from array comparative genomic hybridization, a technique designed to identify all of the somatic allelic gains and losses across the genome. Our method involves several stages. First a segmentation algorithm is used to estimate the regions of allelic gain and loss. Then the broad correlation in these patterns between the two tumors is assessed, leading to an initial likelihood ratio for the two diagnoses. This is then further refined by comparing in detail each plausibly clonal mutation within individual chromosome arms, and the results are aggregated to determine a final likelihood ratio. The method is employed to diagnose patients from several clinical scenarios, and the results show that in many cases a strong clonal signal emerges, occasionally contradicting the clinical diagnosis. The “quality” of the arrays can be summarized by a parameter that characterizes the clarity with which allelic changes are detected. Sensitivity analyses show that most of the diagnoses are robust when the data are of high quality

    Interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions - a study using mobile phone data

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    In this study we analyze one year of anonymized telecommunications data for over one million customers from a large European cellphone operator, and we investigate the relationship between people's calls and their physical location. We discover that more than 90% of users who have called each other have also shared the same space (cell tower), even if they live far apart. Moreover, we find that close to 70% of users who call each other frequently (at least once per month on average) have shared the same space at the same time - an instance that we call co-location. Co-locations appear indicative of coordination calls, which occur just before face-to-face meetings. Their number is highly predictable based on the amount of calls between two users and the distance between their home locations - suggesting a new way to quantify the interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions

    Relational legacies impacting on veteran transition from military to civilian life: trajectories of acquisition, loss and re-formulation of a sense of belonging

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    The veteran cohort has been inextricably linked in the general public's mind by media generated perceptions of high risk and fear of crime, echoed in wider contemporary debates linking issues of place, social identity, social exclusion (Pain 2000) and a loss of belonging in wider communities (Walklate 1998). Despite the growing interest in the longer term outcomes of transition from military to civilian life from policy-makers, practitioners and academics, few qualitative studies explore the social and relational impacts of this transitional experience on those who have experienced it. Tensions and frustrations expressed by ex-forces personnel, engaging in addictions services with a history of engagement in the criminal justice sector, are explored through the lens of belongingness, loss and related citizenship frameworks to expose temporal impacts on the acquisition, loss and reformulation of a sense of belonging across the life course. The relevance of a significant loss of belonging in the transition from military to civilian life is useful, given the widely accepted damaging consequences of having this need thwarted. This paper concludes that a broader understanding of this largely disenfranchised grief (Doka, 2002) can enable more informed reflexive opportunities to facilitate a valued military veteran citizenship status and thereby contribute to the formulation of current policy debates concerning the veteran question

    Holocentric Chromosomes of Luzula elegans Are Characterized by a Longitudinal Centromere Groove, Chromosome Bending, and a Terminal Nucleolus Organizer Region

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    The structure of holocentric chromosomes was analyzed in mitotic cells of Luzula elegans. Light and scanning electron microscopy observations provided evidence for the existence of a longitudinal groove along each sister chromatid. The centromere-specific histone H3 variant, CENH3, colocalized with this groove and with microtubule attachment sites. The terminal chromosomal regions were CENH3-negative. During metaphase to anaphase transition, L. elegans chromosomes typically curved to a sickle-like shape, a process that is likely to be influenced by the pulling forces of microtubules along the holocentric axis towards the corresponding microtubule organizing regions. A single pair of 45S rDNA sites, situated distal to Arabidopsis-telomere repeats, was observed at the terminal region of one chromosome pair. We suggest that the 45S rDNA position in distal centromere-free regions could be required to ensure chromosome stability. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

    Deletion of chromosome 11q predicts response to anthracycline-based chemotherapy in early breast cancer

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    Despite the recent consensus on the eligibility of adjuvant systemic therapy in patients with lymph node–negative breast cancer (NNBC) based on clinicopathologic criteria, specific biological markers are needed to predict sensitivity to the different available therapeutic options.W e examined the feasibility of developing a genomic predictor of chemotherapy response and recurrence risk in 185 patients with NNBC using assembled arrays containing 2,460 bacterial artificial chromosome clones for scanning the genome for DNA copy number changes.Aft er surgery, 90 patients received anthracyclinebased chemotherapy, whereas 95 did not.T amoxifen was administered to patients with hormone receptor–positive tumors. The association of genomic and clinicopathologic data and outcome was computed using Cox proportional hazard models and multiple testing adjustment procedures.Analysis of NNBC genomes revealed a common genomic signature.Specific DNA copy number aberrations were associated with hormonal receptor status, but not with other clinicopathologic variables. In patients treated with chemotherapy, none of the genomic changes were significantly correlated with recurrence.In patients not receiving chemotherapy, deletion of eight bacterial artificial chromosome clones clustered to chromosome 11q was independently associated with relapse (disease-free survival at 10 years F SE, 40% F 14% versus 86% F 6%; P < 0.0001). The 54 patients with deletion of 11q (29%) did not present more aggressive clinicopathologic features than those without 11q loss.The adverse influence of 11q deletion on clinical outcome was confirmed in an independent validation series of 88 patients with NNBC.Our data suggests that patients with NNBC with the 11q deletion might benefit from anthracycline-based chemotherapy despite other clinical, pathologic, or genetic features.However , these initial findings should be evaluated in randomized clinical trials

    Revisiting the Local Scaling Hypothesis in Stably Stratified Atmospheric Boundary Layer Turbulence: an Integration of Field and Laboratory Measurements with Large-eddy Simulations

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    The `local scaling' hypothesis, first introduced by Nieuwstadt two decades ago, describes the turbulence structure of stable boundary layers in a very succinct way and is an integral part of numerous local closure-based numerical weather prediction models. However, the validity of this hypothesis under very stable conditions is a subject of on-going debate. In this work, we attempt to address this controversial issue by performing extensive analyses of turbulence data from several field campaigns, wind-tunnel experiments and large-eddy simulations. Wide range of stabilities, diverse field conditions and a comprehensive set of turbulence statistics make this study distinct

    An objective method for determining principal time scales of coherent eddy structures using orthonormal wavelets

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    A new, parameter-free method, based on orthonormal wavelet expansions is proposed for calculating the principal time scale of coherent structures in atmospheric surface layer measurements. These organized events play an important role in the exchange of heat, mass, and momentum between the land and the atmosphere. This global technique decomposes the energy contribution at each scale into organized and random eddy motion. The method is demonstrated on vertical wind velocity measurements above bare and vegetated surfaces. It is found to give nearly identical results to a local thresholding approach developed for signal de-noising that assigns the wavelet coecients to organized and random motion. The eect of applying anti-and/or near-symmetrical wavelet basis functions is also investigated.

    A meta-analytic review of stand-alone interventions to improve body image

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    Objective Numerous stand-alone interventions to improve body image have been developed. The present review used meta-analysis to estimate the effectiveness of such interventions, and to identify the specific change techniques that lead to improvement in body image. Methods The inclusion criteria were that (a) the intervention was stand-alone (i.e., solely focused on improving body image), (b) a control group was used, (c) participants were randomly assigned to conditions, and (d) at least one pretest and one posttest measure of body image was taken. Effect sizes were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted. A taxonomy of 48 change techniques used in interventions targeted at body image was developed; all interventions were coded using this taxonomy. Results The literature search identified 62 tests of interventions (N = 3,846). Interventions produced a small-to-medium improvement in body image (d+ = 0.38), a small-to-medium reduction in beauty ideal internalisation (d+ = -0.37), and a large reduction in social comparison tendencies (d+ = -0.72). However, the effect size for body image was inflated by bias both within and across studies, and was reliable but of small magnitude once corrections for bias were applied. Effect sizes for the other outcomes were no longer reliable once corrections for bias were applied. Several features of the sample, intervention, and methodology moderated intervention effects. Twelve change techniques were associated with improvements in body image, and three techniques were contra-indicated. Conclusions The findings show that interventions engender only small improvements in body image, and underline the need for large-scale, high-quality trials in this area. The review identifies effective techniques that could be deployed in future interventions

    Multiple ITS Copies Reveal Extensive Hybridization within Rheum (Polygonaceae), a Genus That Has Undergone Rapid Radiation

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    During adaptive radiation events, characters can arise multiple times due to parallel evolution, but transfer of traits through hybridization provides an alternative explanation for the same character appearing in apparently non-sister lineages. The signature of hybridization can be detected in incongruence between phylogenies derived from different markers, or from the presence of two divergent versions of a nuclear marker such as ITS within one individual.In this study, we cloned and sequenced ITS regions for 30 species of the genus Rheum, and compared them with a cpDNA phylogeny. Seven species contained two divergent copies of ITS that resolved in different clades from one another in each case, indicating hybridization events too recent for concerted evolution to have homogenised the ITS sequences. Hybridization was also indicated in at least two further species via incongruence in their position between ITS and cpDNA phylogenies. None of the ITS sequences present in these nine species matched those detected in any other species, which provides tentative evidence against recent introgression as an explanation. Rheum globulosum, previously indicated by cpDNA to represent an independent origin of decumbent habit, is indicated by ITS to be part of clade of decumbent species, which acquired cpDNA of another clade via hybridization. However decumbent and glasshouse morphology are confirmed to have arisen three and two times, respectively.These findings suggested that hybridization among QTP species of Rheum has been extensive, and that a role of hybridization in diversification of Rheum requires investigation
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