Extragenital Blaschkoid lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in a child

Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that typically affects prepubertal girls and peri- or post-menopausal women in genital and perineal areas. In some cases, it can also manifest as extragenital lesions. Extragenital Blaschkoid lesions have infrequently been reported. Here, we report a case of extragenital Blaschkoid lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in a child

Psoriasiform Sarcoidosis Presenting in Pregnancy and Treatment Considerations

Cutaneous sarcoidosis is a common presentation for patients with sarcoidosis. Rarely, patients can present with psoriasiform lesions mimicking chronic plaque psoriasis. Here, we present a case of psoriasiform sarcoidosis in a pregnant patient. Pregnancy represents a unique challenge to systemic treatments if topical management fails. Tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors warrant special consideration during pregnancy

Contemporary and future stresses on estuaries: examples from the Yellow River Delta, the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, and the German Bight

Formed where the water from rivers meets the sea, processes in estuaries are driven by the mixing between freshwater and seawater. Being home to diverse plant and animal communities, which have adapted to this unique environment, estuaries are one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Providing a multitude of ecosystem services, estuaries are also of high economic value and contribute to human well-being. Besides providing habitats to aquatic species, estuaries are a source of food and raw materials while also cycling nutrients and contributing to coastal protection by damping the damaging effects of extreme events (e.g., storm surges). In addition, estuaries ensure safe navigation to and from ports and are used for recreational activities. However, with many of the world’s largest cities located on estuaries, they are directly exposed to impacts from human activity, such as overexploitation of resources or pollution. Being located in low-lying coastal areas, estuaries are also vulnerable to sea-level rise while simultaneously being impacted by climate change-induced alterations in hydrology. The combination of human-driven and climate-induced changes may lead to the degradation or loss of estuarine ecosystems and the services they provide. In order to minimize negative impacts and to promote a sustainable management of estuaries, it is thus important to investigate how estuarine environments respond to drivers of contemporary and future changes. Since no two estuaries are alike, examples from the Yellow River Delta (China), the Mekong Delta (Vietnam), and the German Bight are presented in this thesis. Major drivers, which impact these focus regions, include: sand mining/dredging, damming, climate change-induced alterations in hydrology, and sea-level rise. The aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of how the selected estuaries are impacted by predominant contemporary and projected future drivers. This is accomplished by addressing different research questions with a focus on: (i) improving methods for assessing the present-day impact of selected drivers, (ii) improving projections by addressing less visible impacts and by integrating recently identified relevant processes, and (iii) applying different scenarios of plausible future developments in estuarine environments. (i) In a first study focusing on the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, improved methods were used to gain new insights into the intensity of regional sand mining activity. It was shown that the regional extraction of sand from the Mekong riverbed, which is driven by socio-economic developments in the region, is significantly higher than the river’s natural supply of sand. These findings have strong implications for the stability of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, which is already subject to riverbank and coastal erosion under present-day conditions. (ii) Projections of future developments in estuaries were improved by addressing less visible impacts in numerical models and by integrating previously unaddressed processes. A second study concentrating on the Vietnamese Mekong Delta was used to project, for the first time, the morphodynamic evolution of the Mekong in response to a combination of major drivers, including sand mining, damming, climate change-induced alterations in hydrology, and sea-level rise. In a third study, which focuses on the North Sea, it could also be shown that the morphological evolution of intertidal flats in the Wadden Sea has a significant impact on the tidal dynamics in the region when considering future sea-level rise. (iii) By applying numerous plausible scenarios of future developments, the second study concentrating on the Mekong was able to identify the operation of hydropower dams as the major driver for future morphodynamic changes in the region, followed by sand extraction. Furthermore, this approach enabled to investigate the local interactions between different drivers. By combining different rates of sea-level rise with various rates of vertical accretion in the intertidal flats of the Wadden Sea, several plausible scenarios were also addressed in the study focusing on North Sea tides. If no vertical accretion is assumed in the intertidal flats, sea-level rise will lead to enhanced tidal asymmetry in the German estuaries Elbe, Weser, and Ems, potentially leading to increased sediment import. In contrast, tidal asymmetries resemble present-day conditions if intertidal flats are able to keep up with sea-level rise

An Evaluation of Popular Copy-Move Forgery Detection Approaches

A copy-move forgery is created by copying and pasting content within the same image, and potentially post-processing it. In recent years, the detection of copy-move forgeries has become one of the most actively researched topics in blind image forensics. A considerable number of different algorithms have been proposed focusing on different types of postprocessed copies. In this paper, we aim to answer which copy-move forgery detection algorithms and processing steps (e.g., matching, filtering, outlier detection, affine transformation estimation) perform best in various postprocessing scenarios. The focus of our analysis is to evaluate the performance of previously proposed feature sets. We achieve this by casting existing algorithms in a common pipeline. In this paper, we examined the 15 most prominent feature sets. We analyzed the detection performance on a per-image basis and on a per-pixel basis. We created a challenging real-world copy-move dataset, and a software framework for systematic image manipulation. Experiments show, that the keypoint-based features SIFT and SURF, as well as the block-based DCT, DWT, KPCA, PCA and Zernike features perform very well. These feature sets exhibit the best robustness against various noise sources and downsampling, while reliably identifying the copied regions.Comment: Main paper: 14 pages, supplemental material: 12 pages, main paper appeared in IEEE Transaction on Information Forensics and Securit

Mindful Eating: Trait and State Mindfulness Predict Healthier Eating Behavior

Obesity and excess weight are significant societal problems. Mindfulness may encourage healthier weight and eating habits. Across four studies, we found a positive relation between mindfulness and healthier eating. Trait mindfulness was associated with less impulsive eating, reduced calorie consumption, and healthier snack choices. In addition, we found a causal effect of mindfulness on healthier eating. An experimental manipulation of state mindfulness led participants to consume fewer calories in a spontaneous eating task. We also found preliminary evidence that mindfulness affects eating behavior by encouraging attitudinal preferences for healthier foods. Taken together, these results provide strong evidence that mindfulness encourages healthier eating, even in the absence of specific instruction in mindful eating. These results suggest that generic mindfulness-based strategies could have ancillary benefits for encouraging healthier eating behavior

Beyond Optimal Linear Tax Mechanisms: An Experimental Examination of Damage-Based Ambient Taxes for Nonpoint Polluters

The regulation of nonpoint source water pollution from agriculture is a complex problem characterized by a multiplicity of polluters, informational asymmetries, complex fate and transport processes, and stochastic environmental factors. Taken together, these characteristics make regulatory policy based on individual firm emissions prohibitively costly. To circumvent this issue, economists, beginning with the seminal work of Segerson (1988), have devised economic incentive instruments that assign liabilities based on deviations between the observed ambient water quality level and a specified pollution threshold (Xepapadeas 1991; Horan, Shortle and Abler 1998, 2002; Hansen 1998, 2002). In the special case of a linear damage function, the regulator can optimally set the parameters of Segerson's (1988) incentive scheme solely with information on the damage function. When the damage function is nonlinear, a depiction that likely represents many watersheds, Segerson's incentive scheme is firm-specific, and the regulator must acquire costly firm-specific data on factors such as input use, land management practice, and soil type. Using a linear damage function setting, recent laboratory experimental economics efforts have investigated the ambient-based mechanisms proposed by Segerson, as well as some simple variants (Spraggon 2002, 2004; Poe et al. 2004; Vossler et al. 2005). A fundamental limitaion of this body of research, however, is that has utilized an "optimal design" in which the threshold pollution level for triggering the abient-based policy is set equal to the social optimum. It is therefore unclear whether subjects are optimally responding to the tax and threshold combination, or simply trying to reacting to the focal point created by the threshold. A second limitation of past experimetnal economics research is that, following Segerson, these investigations have utilized the limited case of a linear tax function. While a tax policy is relatively straightforward to apply when damages are linear, the application to real world situations may be limited. A more believable circumstance is that economic damages increase at an increasing rate as ambient pollution levels rise. This paper advances the experimental literature on ambient based pollution mechanisms in two important ways. First, by employing a range of marginal tax rates and threshold levels, we show that subjects do in fact respond optimally to the tax and cutoff combination. Second, by using the damage based tax proposed Hansen (1998) and Horan et al. (1998), we show that aggregate results when the economic damages from ambient water pollution are nonlinear are not significantly different from corresponding results under the linear tax.Environmental Economics and Policy,

The texture of thin NiSi films and its effect on agglomeration

Nickel silicide films are used as contacting materials in the micro electronics industry. It was recently [1] discovered that these films exhibit a peculiar type of texture, which was called 'axiotaxy', whereby certain lattice planes in the NiSi grains are preferentially aligned to (110)-type lattice planes in the single crystal Si substrate. In this contribution, we present a quantitative study of this phenomenon, using both XRD pole figure measurements and EBSD. Furthermore, we report a correlation between the texture of these NiSi films and their morphological stability during annealing at high temperature. In spite of the small grain size in these films, EBSD could be used to determine the volume fractions of the various texture components. This provided quantitative support for the claim that axiotaxy is the main texture component in these films, as about 40% of the grains belong to one of the axiotaxial texture components, and the remaining fraction exhibits a random orientation. A discussion of the techniques used during the measurement and analysis of the EBSD data is presented, as this must be given special consideration in view of the peculiar type of texture encountered in these films. Secondly, both XRD and EBSD were performed after annealing the NiSi films at various temperatures and durations. It is known that thin NiSi films have a strong tendency to agglomerate [2]. Our data indicates a correlation between the texture evolution and the agglomeration of the NiSi layer. Grains with axiotaxial orientation were observed to grow and thicken during the annealing process, by consuming neighboring randomly oriented grains. This suggests that the texture of the NiSi layer is a determining factor for the morphological stability of the film. The fact that grains with axiotaxial orientation grow during heat treatment can be related to the one dimensional periodicity at the interface, which lowers the interface energy and thus provides a driving force for the preferred growth of these grains. The agglomeration of NiSi films results in a significant increase of the sheet resistance. Therefore, these results illustrate the importance of texture control for the application of these films as contacts in micro-electronic devices

Influence of alloying elements on the phase formation of ultrathin Ni (<10nm) on Si(001) substrates

The influence of Ni thickness on the formation of Nickel silicides was systematically investigated between 0 and 15nm. Annealing thickness gradients distinguishes films that agglomerate (>5nm) and films that are morphologically stable (<5nm). Alloying the initial Ni layer influences this critical thickness to higher (Al, Co) and lower (Ge, Pd, Pt) values. Pole figures and in situ XRD provides information to understand this observed shift in critical thickness

Seeking, Reading, and Use of Scholarly Articles: An International Study of Perceptions and Behavior of Researchers.

While journal articles are still considered the most important sources of scholarly reading, libraries may no longer have a monopoly on providing discovery and access. Many other sources of scholarly information are available to readers. This international study examines how researchers discover, read, and use scholarly literature for their work. Respondents in 2018 report an average of almost 20 article readings a month and there are still significant differences found in the reading and use of scholarly literature by discipline and geographical location, consistent with the earlier studies. Researchers show they are willing to change or adopt new strategies to discover and obtain articles

PROVER-M: A simple model to project the disposal of fine sediments

To improve sediment management strategies in coastal waters, the presented software, PROVER-M, uses a simple near-field model that projects the active distribution of fine sediments after a disposal of dredged material. PROVER-M aims to provide valuable input for far-field models, enabling them to more accurately simulate the disposal of fine sediments on a larger scale. Based on the input, PROVER-M calculates the dynamic plume behavior, including the convective descent of sediments and their dynamic collapse on the bottom. The result is a spatial distribution of disposed sediments through the water column and on the ground