Unsupervised Adaptation for Synthetic-to-Real Handwritten Word Recognition

Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) is still a challenging problem because it must deal with two important difficulties: the variability among writing styles, and the scarcity of labelled data. To alleviate such problems, synthetic data generation and data augmentation are typically used to train HTR systems. However, training with such data produces encouraging but still inaccurate transcriptions in real words. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised writer adaptation approach that is able to automatically adjust a generic handwritten word recognizer, fully trained with synthetic fonts, towards a new incoming writer. We have experimentally validated our proposal using five different datasets, covering several challenges (i) the document source: modern and historic samples, which may involve paper degradation problems; (ii) different handwriting styles: single and multiple writer collections; and (iii) language, which involves different character combinations. Across these challenging collections, we show that our system is able to maintain its performance, thus, it provides a practical and generic approach to deal with new document collections without requiring any expensive and tedious manual annotation step.Comment: Accepted to WACV 202

Real Women in Korean Film and TV: Progressive Portrayals of Unmarried, Elderly, and Lesbian Women

Thesis advisor: Christina KleinWith the recent rise in popularity of Korean media, more audiences than ever before have been exposed to portrayals of Korean women. Most female protagonists in Korean dramas adhere to Confucian gender norms: they are primarily concerned with romance and fail to drive their own narratives. This paper analyzes feminist characters who instead bend or expand conservative gender conventions in order to normalize different lifestyles for all women. In seeking out progressive portrayals, this paper focuses specifically on depictions of unmarried, elderly, and lesbian women in Korean entertainment. By honing in on women who do not fit the mold of traditional or acceptable femininity, this paper argues for more realistic representations of women in modern Korean society.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Departmental Honors.Discipline: English

Quantitative Analysis of Cadaveric Pelvic Lymph Nodes

Introduction: Lymphedema commonly develops as a result of cancer treatments, including surgical removal of lymph nodes (LN). Research suggests there are 500-800 (LN) throughout the body. Deciding how many LN to remove and predicting possible severity of damage can become problematic when the range of LN in one area can vary by 30 LN. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate more precise ranges of pelvic LN within cadaver samples. Methods: Quantification of LN for number occurred on cadavers simultaneous with DO, PT, and PA students’ dissections. Demographics of the cadavers were 27 female, 16 male, 39 Caucasian, 3 African American, 1 Asian, with an age range of 42-102 and a mean of 70. The study utilized anatomical landmarks to identify and label the LN. Cadavers (N=43) inspected for lumbar LN and cadavers (N=86 sides) inspected for sacral, common, deep and superficial inguinal, and internal and external iliac LN. Results: Quantitative analysis of the pelvic region LN revealed a power analysis value of 0.733 with 43 cadaver sample size (unpaired LN regions) and a value of 0.954 with a 86 cadaver sample size (paired LN regions). Analysis of LN in unpaired lumbar region revealed the true mean of the LN lies between 20-28 [CI=95] while previous data shows LN quantity ranging from 20-50. The true mean of LN in paired regions lies between [CI=95] from 6-10 (numerical range 5-30) for the common iliac, 2-3 (numerical range 2-3) for the sacral, 5-7 (numerical range 4-18) for the internal iliac, 10-13 (numerical range 5-25) for the external iliac, 2-4(numerical range 1-3) for the deep inguinal, and 9-12 (numerical range 4-25) for the superficial inguinal. Conclusions: This study found reduced numbers of LN per 5 of the 7 regions from previous estimates. The common iliac and deep inguinal ranges did not change. These results could improve a surgeon’s informed decision on the number of LN to remove with staging and treating cancer

First Spectroscopic Confirmations of z ~ 7.0 Lya Emitting Galaxies in the LAGER Survey

Narrowband imaging is a highly successful approach for finding large numbers of high redshift Lya emitting galaxies (LAEs) up to z~6.6. However, at z>~7 there are as yet only 3 narrowband selected LAEs with spectroscopic confirmations (two at z~6.9-7.0, one at z~7.3), which hinders extensive studies on cosmic reionization and galaxy evolution at this key epoch. We have selected 23 candidate z~6.9 LAEs in COSMOS field with the large area narrowband survey LAGER (Lyman-Alpha Galaxies at the End of Reionization). In this work we present spectroscopic followup observations of 12 candidates using IMACS on Magellan. For 9 of these, the observations are sufficiently deep to detect the expected lines. Lya emission lines are identified in six sources (yielding a success rate of 2/3), including 3 luminous LAEs with Lya luminosities of L(Lya) ~ 10^{43.5} erg/s, the highest among known spectroscopically confirmed galaxies at >~7.0. This triples the sample size of spectroscopically confirmed narrowband selected LAEs at z>~7, and confirms the bright end bump in the Lya luminosity function we previously derived based on the photometric sample, supporting a patchy reionization scenario. Two luminous LAEs appear physically linked with projected distance of 1.1 pMpc and velocity difference of ~ 170 km/s. They likely sit in a common ionized bubble produced by themselves or with close neighbors, which reduces the IGM attenuation of Lya. A tentative narrow NV${\lambda}$1240 line is seen in one source, hinting at activity of a central massive black hole with metal rich line emitting gas.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted by ApJ

Influence of cell number and collagen concentration on the mechanical behaviour of collagen hydrogel constructs [Abstracts]

Influence of cell number and collagen concentration on the mechanical behaviour of collagen hydrogel constructs [Abstracts

Radionuclide Labeling and Evaluation of Candidate Radioligands for PET Imaging of Histone Deacetylase in the Brain

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) regulate gene expression by inducing conformational changes in chromatin. Ever since the discovery of a naturally occurring HDAC inhibitor, trichostatin A (TSA) stimulated the recent development of suberoylanilide (SAHA, Zolinza®), HDAC has become an important molecular target for drug development. This has created the need to develop specific in vivo radioligands to study epigenetic regulation and HDAC engagement for drug development for diseases including cancer and psychiatric disorders. 6-([18F]Fluoroacetamido)-1-hexanoicanilide ([18F]FAHA) was recently developed as a HDAC substrate and shows moderate blood–brain barrier (BBB) permeability and specific signal (by metabolic trapping/or deacetylation) but rapid metabolism. Here, we report the radiosynthesis of two carbon-11 labeled candidate radiotracers (substrate- and inhibitor-based radioligand) for HDAC and their evaluation in non-human primate brain. PET studies showed very low brain uptake and rapid metabolism of both labeled compounds but revealed a surprising enhancement of brain penetration by F for H substitution when comparing one of these to [18F]FAHA. Further structural refinement is needed for the development of brain-penetrant, metabolically stable HDAC radiotracers and to understand the role of fluorine substitution on brain penetration.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog