A Novel Object Segmentation Method for Silhouette Tracker in Video Surveillance Application

In recent years, surveillance cameras are deployed almost everywhere. More and more video analytics features have been developed and incorporated with video surveillance system for conducting intelligence tasks, such as motion detection, human identification, etc. One typical requirement is to track suspicious humans or vehicles in the cameras' live or recorded footages, and over the years researchers have proposed different tracking methods, such as point tracking, kernel tracking and silhouette tracking to support this requirement. In particular, silhouette tracker has received considerable attention because it works well for objects with a large variety of shape, provided that reasonably good object masks or contours are initialized properly for the silhouette tracker. A properly initialized object mask and contour, however, cannot be obtained easily. On one hand, a simple bounding box contains too much irrelevant background objects, while a manually specified mask could provide accurate silhouette but this also requires lots of interactive which greatly limits its practicality. In this paper, we present a novel block based object mask segmentation method for silhouette tracker initialization. Essentially, the proposed method re-uses the motion information extracted during the video encoding phase, which provides approximated object masks for silhouette tracker. Experimental results confirm that such a block-based object masks is sufficient for a robust silhouette tracker to reliably track moving objects. © 2014 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Dialogic Reading With Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Kindergarteners: Does Reading With Parents or Siblings Enhance Their Language Development?

Dialogic reading (DR) is an interactive reading approach that enhances the language development of children. This study aims to extend DR to the shared reading context involving children with attentiondeficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their older siblings and to examine the effects of DR with parents/siblings on the language development of Chinese children with ADHD. This study included 850 Chinese kindergarteners with ADHD and their parents/older siblings. These children were pretested on their Chinese receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, character reading, listening comprehension, and reading interest and were randomly assigned to four groups, namely, dialogic reading with parents (PR-DR), dialogic reading with siblings (SR-DR), parent reading control (PR-C), and sibling reading control (SR-C). After a 12-week intervention period, they were posttested on the same measures. Results show that both DR with parents and siblings effectively enhanced language skills and reading interest in children with ADHD. In addition, those children who read with their older siblings demonstrated greater improvements in their expressive vocabulary, character reading skills, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading interest yet achieved a smaller growth in their listening comprehension compared with those who read with their parents. These findings showed the positive effects of DR on the language development of children with ADHD and highlight the importance of involving siblings in home literacy activities to facilitate the language development of these children

Limited open reduction and Ilizarov external fixation in the treatment of distal tibial fractures

The authors reviewed 31 distal tibial fractures (16 involving the tibial plafond) treated with Ilizarov external fixation. The study population was composed of 19 males and 12 females, with an average age of 54. The fractures were classified according to the AO classification: A1 (3), A2 (6), A3 (6), C1 (2), C2 (8), C3 (6). There were six open injuries. In 14 pilon cases, open reduction of the intra-articular fragments and bone grafting via a limited incision was performed. Clinical follow-up averaged 28 months (range 18-42). All but one fracture united with an average healing time of 13.9 weeks. Nearly all patients with AO type A fracture had excellent or good functional scores. The 14 cases of AO C2 and C3 group had five (38%) good results, five (38%) fair results and three (24%) poor results. This method yielded results comparable with previous studies using open reduction and internal fixation. Twenty-nine percent of the patients had pin track infection, which remained the most important complication of this method. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

Evaluation of a peer counselling programme to sustain breastfeeding practice in Hong Kong

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Peer counselling is reported to increase breastfeeding rates. We evaluated an intervention consisting of mainly telephone contact peer counselling programme on breastfeeding duration and exclusivity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Peer counsellors (PCs) were mothers who had successfully breastfed and had received formal training. Following a postnatal visit, they provided scheduled telephone consultations (Days 1, 4, 7, Weeks 2, 4, 8, and Month 4) to PC group mothers (n = 100) who continued breastfeeding their infants after discharge. Control group mothers (n = 100) received routine care.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After adjusting for mothers' previous breastfeeding experiences, mothers' working status and breastfeeding problems, no statistical differences in mothers' feeding methods (exclusive, almost exclusive or predominant breastfeeding) were noted at the three follow-up times for intervention and control mothers respectively (Day 5: 37%/38%, 46%/53%, 57%/63%; Month 3: 10%/9%, 17%/23%, 20%/26%; Month 6: 2%/1%, 18%/18%, 18%/19%). All differences between the groups were not significant. Also, there was no evidence to suggest that PC intervention prolonged breastfeeding duration.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The lack of effect of our PC intervention may reflect the low baseline breastfeeding rate and low value placed on breastfeeding in our population, the type of PC intervention or group allocation biases.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ISRCTN93605280.</p

Live birth following double-factor pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for both reciprocal translocation and alpha-thalassaemia

published_or_final_versio

Role of Circulating Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 Measurement in Primary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease Among Chinese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

BACKGROUND: Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) has demonstrated beneficial effects on lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. In cross-sectional studies, an association of raised circulating FGF21 levels with coronary heart disease (CHD) was found in some but not all studies. Here we investigated prospectively whether baseline serum FGF21 levels could predict incident CHD in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus and no known cardiovascular diseases. METHODS AND RESULTS: Baseline serum FGF21 levels were measured in 3528 Chinese subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus recruited from the Hong Kong West Diabetes Registry. The role of baseline serum FGF21 levels in predicting incident CHD over a median follow-up of 3.8 years was analyzed using Cox regression analysis. Among 3528 recruited subjects without known cardiovascular diseases, 147 (4.2%) developed CHD over a mean follow-up of 4 years. Baseline serum log-transformed FGF21 levels were significantly higher in those who had incident CHD than those who did not (222.7 pg/mL [92.8-438.4] versus 151.1 pg/mL [75.6-274.6]; P<0.001). On multivariable Cox regression analysis, baseline serum FGF21 levels, using an optimal cutoff of 206.22 pg/mL derived from our study, independently predicted incident CHD (hazard ratio, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.10-2.19; P=0.013) and significantly improved net reclassification index and integrated discrimination improvement after adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors. CONCLUSIONS: We have demonstrated, for the first time, that serum FGF21 level is an independent predictor of incident CHD and might be usefully utilized as a biomarker for identifying type 2 diabetes mellitus subjects with raised CHD risk, for primary prevention.published_or_final_versio

Hypoadiponectinemia As an Independent Predictor for the Progression of Carotid Atherosclerosis: A 5-Year Prospective Study

published_or_final_versio

Genome maps across 26 human populations reveal population-specific patterns of structural variation.

Large structural variants (SVs) in the human genome are difficult to detect and study by conventional sequencing technologies. With long-range genome analysis platforms, such as optical mapping, one can identify large SVs (&gt;2 kb) across the genome in one experiment. Analyzing optical genome maps of 154 individuals from the 26 populations sequenced in the 1000 Genomes Project, we find that phylogenetic population patterns of large SVs are similar to those of single nucleotide variations in 86% of the human genome, while ~2% of the genome has high structural complexity. We are able to characterize SVs in many intractable regions of the genome, including segmental duplications and subtelomeric, pericentromeric, and acrocentric areas. In addition, we discover ~60 Mb of non-redundant genome content missing in the reference genome sequence assembly. Our results highlight the need for a comprehensive set of alternate haplotypes from different populations to represent SV patterns in the genome

Fear of movement/(re)injury in Chinese patients with chronic pain: Factorial validity of the Chinese version of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia

Objective: To assess the factor structure of the Chinese version of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK). Design: Chinese patients with chronic pain attending either orthopaedic specialist services (n = 216) or multidisciplinary specialist pain services (n = 109) participated in this study. Methods: Subjects completed the Chinese version of TSK, The Chronic Pain Grade Questionnaire, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and questions assessing socio-demographic characteristics. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to compare hierarchical and correlated models of 5 different factor solutions previously reported in patients with chronic pain in the West. Results: Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated inequality of the TSK factor structure, in that the TSK11 for the orthopaedics sample was best represented by a two-factor correlated model (S-Bχ2 = 49.593; comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.93; normed filt index (NFI) = 0.911; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.025) comprising 2 first-order factors, Somatic Focus (TSK11-SF) and Activity Avoidance (TSK-AA). The pain clinic sample showed a one-factor structure as best representing the TSK4’s underlying dimensions (CFI  = 0.971; NFI = 0.912; RMSEA = 0.048). There was no evidence to support a single overarching concept of kinesiophobia. Conclusion: The TSK appears to have utility in Chinese chronic pain populations. Elucidation of the TSK’s psychometrics properties in other Chinese/Asian pain populations with different diagnoses and presentations of pain problems is warranted

Evidence of individual differences in the long-term social, psychological, and cognitive consequences of child maltreatment

Background: The prevalence and consequences of child maltreatment are alarming, but evidence from studies with long follow-up intervals are limited. This study examined the long-term consequences of child maltreatment in relation to age of onset and follow-up interval. / Methods: The exposed group comprised 63 individuals (aged 13–34 years) with a first-time diagnosis of child maltreatment between 2001 and 2010, whereas the unexposed group comprised 63 individuals who were matched upon gender, age of onset, follow-up period, and poverty status at the index hospital admission but had no medical records of maltreatment in Hong Kong. The participants completed a set of questionnaires on executive functions and mental health and provided blood samples for measurement of IL-6 and IL-10 levels during a health assessment session. / Results: Compared with the unexposed group, the exposed group reported poorer maternal care during childhood (β = −4.64, p < 0.001) and had lower family support (β = −2.97, p = 0.010) and higher inflammatory responses (IL-6: β = 0.15, p = 0.001; IL-10: β = 0.11, p = 0.011) at follow-up. Additionally, the associations of childhood maltreatment exposure with family support and maternal care differed by age of onset and the length of time since exposure. / Conclusions: This matched cohort study highlights childhood maltreatment as a risk factor for systemic inflammation and an indicator of suboptimal social environment, both of which could persist over a long period of time