The Prospects for Democracy in Iran

Streaming video requires RealPlayer to view.The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.Why did Iran's pro-democracy movement fail? Mark Gasiorowski, director of the International Studies Program at Louisiana State University, argues the movement failed because its leaders opted to pursue incremental, gradual change from within rather than directly confronting the Islamic regime.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, streaming video, photos, lecture summar

Individual and group dynamic behaviour patterns in bound spaces

The behaviour analysis of individual and group dynamics in closed spaces is a subject of extensive research in both academia and industry. However, despite recent technological advancements the problem of implementing the existing methods for visual behaviour data analysis in production systems remains difficult and the applications are available only in special cases in which the resourcing is not a problem. Most of the approaches concentrate on direct extraction and classification of the visual features from the video footage for recognising the dynamic behaviour directly from the source. The adoption of such an approach allows recognising directly the elementary actions of moving objects, which is a difficult task on its own. The major factor that impacts the performance of the methods for video analytics is the necessity to combine processing of enormous volume of video data with complex analysis of this data using and computationally resourcedemanding analytical algorithms. This is not feasible for many applications, which must work in real time. In this research, an alternative simulation-based approach for behaviour analysis has been adopted. It can potentially reduce the requirements for extracting information from real video footage for the purpose of the analysis of the dynamic behaviour. This can be achieved by combining only limited data extracted from the original video footage with a symbolic data about the events registered on the scene, which is generated by 3D simulation synchronized with the original footage. Additionally, through incorporating some physical laws and the logics of dynamic behaviour directly in the 3D model of the visual scene, this framework allows to capture the behavioural patterns using simple syntactic pattern recognition methods. The extensive experiments with the prototype implementation prove in a convincing manner that the 3D simulation generates sufficiently rich data to allow analysing the dynamic behaviour in real-time with sufficient adequacy without the need to use precise physical data, using only a limited data about the objects on the scene, their location and dynamic characteristics. This research can have a wide applicability in different areas where the video analytics is necessary, ranging from public safety and video surveillance to marketing research to computer games and animation. Its limitations are linked to the dependence on some preliminary processing of the video footage which is still less detailed and computationally demanding than the methods which use directly the video frames of the original footage

PHOSPHATE ADSORPTION AND DESORPTION ON TWO CONTRASTING SOILS USED FOR LAND TREATMENT OF WASTEWATER

Land treatment of wastewater involves the use of plants and the soil to remove unwanted constituents. Removal of phosphorus is particularly important to avoid excessive biological activity in water systems receiving the treated wastewater. This research examines the phosphate adsorption - desorption behavior of two soils: Charlton silt loam, a typical acid soil from New England which is being used in experimental wastewater treatment, and Tujunga coarse sandy loam from a wastewater land treatment facility located at Manteca, California, which has failed to remove phosphate from wastewater efficiently. The effects of changing the pH and phosphate content of municipal wastewater on adsorption and desorption were determined. Sorption isotherms were determined for each soil using wastewater as the equilibration solution. Phosphate was added to the wastewater to obtain the concentration range necessary for the isotherms. After 96 hour equilibration periods, radioactive phosphorus was added to the suspensions. Measurements of the redistribution of the P-32 were used to determine the exchangeability of the sorbed phosphate. Radioactive phosphorus-32 was used to follow the adsorption and desorption rates in suspensions of soil and wastewater. Parallel experiments were conducted in which phosphate concentrations were determined by conventional spectrophotometric analysis. Effluent from a conventional secondary treatment facility and the whole soil (all particles \u3c 2 mm) were used in these studies to model the normal situation in land treatment facilities. Concentration changes of solution phosphate or P-32 were measured over 46 hour equilibration periods. After this period, soil samples were separated from the suspension, treated to remove interstitial solution, and dried at room temperature. The dried soil samples were resuspended with either a fresh portion of effluent or 0.005 M NaCl solution. Resuspension with effluent mimics a repeat application of wastewater to a treatment field. Suspension in sodium chloride solution allows determination of phosphate desorption in the absence of exchange reactions. The complementary use of P-32 and non-radioactive phosphate permitted the evaluation of adsorption and desorption of freshly sorbed and native phosphate independently as well as the amount of exchange occurring. Charlton soil sorbed large amounts of phosphate with a capacity of over 1000 mg P/g soil. At concentrations typical of wastewater, complete removal of phosphate from solution was rapid. When small amounts (\u3c 100 mg/g) were sorbed, phosphate was bound in very stable forms which were largely unavailable to exchange. Sorption was slightly less complete in suspensions at pH 8.0 as compared to pH 5.0 and 6.5. At higher loadings of phosphate, an increasing amount of exchangeable phosphate was sorbed on the Charlton soil. However, at a single pH, the proportion of exchangeable phosphate to sorbed phosphate was constant at all amounts of sorbed P studied. Tujunga soil capacity for phosphate was much lower than Charlton soil. Sorbed phosphate was susceptible to a large amount to exchange as well as net desorption. Efficiency of sorption decreased with a decrease in pH--opposite to the trend observed with the Charlton soil. A three step mechanism of P sorption was used to explain the results of these studies. Determination of relative concentrations of Fe (II) and Fe (III) by Mossbauer spectroscopy was examined. Mossbauer spectra were obtained which demonstrate the successful application of the technique to the study of reduced iron in soils

Hox gene expression in postmetamorphic juveniles of the brachiopod Terebratalia transversa

Background: Hox genes encode a family of homeodomain containing transcription factors that are clustered together on chromosomes of many Bilateria. Some bilaterian lineages express these genes during embryogenesis in spatial and/or temporal order according to their arrangement in the cluster, a phenomenon referred to as collinearity. Expression of Hox genes is well studied during embryonic and larval development of numerous species; however, relatively few studies focus on the comparison of pre- and postmetamorphic expression of Hox genes in animals with biphasic life cycle. Recently, the expression of Hox genes was described for embryos and larvae of Terebratalia transversa, a rhynchonelliformean brachiopod, which possesses distinct metamorphosis from planktonic larvae to sessile juveniles. During premetamorphic development, T. transversa does not exhibit spatial collinearity and several of its Hox genes are recruited for the morphogenesis of novel structures. In our study, we determined the expression of Hox genes in postmetamorphic juveniles of T. transversa in order to examine metamorphosis-related changes of expression patterns and to test whether Hox genes are expressed in the spatially collinear way in the postmetamorphic juveniles. Results: Hox genes are expressed in a spatially non-collinear manner in juveniles, generally showing similar patterns as ones observed in competent larvae: genes labial and post1 are expressed in chaetae-related structures, sex combs reduced in the shell-forming epithelium, whereas lox5 and lox4 in dorso-posterior epidermis. After metamorphosis, expression of genes proboscipedia, hox3, deformed and antennapedia becomes restricted to, respectively, shell musculature, prospective hinge rudiments and pedicle musculature and epidermis. Conclusions: All developmental stages of T. transversa, including postmetamorphic juveniles, exhibit a spatial non-collinear Hox genes expression with only minor changes observed between pre- and postmetamorphic stages. Our results are concordant with morphological observation that metamorphosis in rhynchonelliformean brachiopods, despite being rapid, is rather gradual. The most drastic changes in Hox gene expression patterns observed during metamorphosis could be explained by the inversion of the mantle lobe, which relocates some of the more posterior larval structures into the anterior edge of the juveniles. Co-option of Hox genes for the morphogenesis of novel structures is even more pronounced in postmetamorphic brachiopods when compared to larvae.publishedVersio

Digital Signal Processing for Hydroacoustic System in Biomimetic Underwater Vehicle

Signal processing in hydroacoustic system will be presented in this paper. The research results, depicted in this article, were achieved during realization one of the stages of the project for the development of an biomimetic underwater vehicle (BUV). The hydroacoustic system is installed inside Biomimetic Underwater Vehicle no. 2 (BUV2) and is designed for passive obstacle detection system. The passive measurement system was based on two hydrophones mounted on the upper part of the BUV2. The results of the hydroacoustic module testing were made in a real environment. The signals from the hydrophones were converted from analog to digital form and then filtered and analyzed by using algorithms implemented in the Texas Instruments C2000 series microcontroller

Morphology of the nervous system of monogonont rotifer Epiphanes senta with a focus on sexual dimorphism between feeding females and dwarf males

Background: Monogononta is a large clade of rotifers comprised of diverse morphological forms found in a wide range of ecological habitats. Most monogonont species display cyclical parthenogenesis, where generations of asexually reproducing females are interspaced by mixis events when sexual reproduction occurs between mictic females and dwarf, haploid males. The morphology of monogonont feeding females is relatively well described, however data on male anatomy are very limited. Thus far, male musculature of only two species has been described with confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and it remains unknown how dwarfism influences the neuroanatomy of males on detailed level. Results: Here, we provide a CLSM-based description of the nervous system of both sexes of Epiphanes senta, a freshwater monogonont rotifer. The general nervous system architecture is similar between males and females and shows a similar level of complexity. However, the nervous system in males is more compact and lacks a stomatogastric part. Conclusion: Comparison of the neuroanatomy between male and normal-sized feeding females provides a better understanding of the nature of male dwarfism in Monogononta. We propose that dwarfism of monogonont nonfeeding males is the result of a specific case of heterochrony, called “proportional dwarfism” as they, due to their inability to feed, retain a juvenile body size, but still develop a complex neural architecture comparable to adult females. Reduction of the stomatogastric nervous system in the males correlates with the loss of the entire digestive tract and associated morphological structures.publishedVersio

3D Simulation-based Analysis of Individual and Group Dynamic Behaviour in Video Surveillance

The visual behaviour analysis of individual and group dynamics is a subject of extensive research in both academia and industry. However, despite the recent technological advancements, the problem remains difficult. Most of the approaches concentrate on direct extraction and classification of graphical features from the video feed, analysing the behaviour directly from the source. The major obstacle, which impacts the real-time performance, is the necessity of combining processing of enormous volume of video data with complex symbolic data analysis. In this paper, we present the results of the experimental validation of a new method for dynamic behaviour analysis in visual analytics framework, which has as a core an agent-based, event-driven simulator. Our method utilizes only limited data extracted from the live video to analyse the activities monitored by surveillance cameras. Through combining the ontology of the visual scene, which accounts for the logical features of the observed world, with the patterns of dynamic behaviour, approximating the visual dynamics of the world, the framework allows recognizing the behaviour patterns on the basis of logical events rather than on physical appearance. This approach has several advantages. Firstly, the simulation reduces the complexity of data processing by eliminating the need of precise graphic data. Secondly, the granularity and precision of the analysed behaviour patterns can be controlled by parameters of the simulation itself. The experiments prove in a convincing manner that the simulation generates rich enough data to analyse the dynamic behaviour in real time with sufficient precision, completely adequate for many applications of video surveillance

Simulation-based visual analysis of individual and group dynamic behavior

The article presents a new framework for individual and group dynamic behavior analysis with wide applicability to video surveillance and security, accidents and safety management, customer insight and computer games. It combines graphical multi-agent simulation and motion pattern recognition for performing visual data analysis using an object-centric approach. The article describes the simulation model used for modeling the individual and group dynamics which is based on the analytical description of dynamic trajectories in closed micro-worlds and the individual and group behavior patterns exhibited by the agents in the visual scene. The simulator is implemented using 3D graphics tools and supports real-time event log analysis for pattern recognition and classification of the individual and group agent’s behavior

Brachiopod and mollusc biomineralisation is a conserved process that was lost in the phoronid–bryozoan stem lineage

Background: Brachiopods and molluscs are lophotrochozoans with hard external shells which are often believed to have evolved convergently. While palaeontological data indicate that both groups are descended from biomineralising Cambrian ancestors, the closest relatives of brachiopods, phoronids and bryozoans, are mineralised to a much lower extent and are comparatively poorly represented in the Palaeozoic fossil record. Although brachiopod and mollusc shells are structurally analogous, genomic and proteomic evidence indicates that their formation involves a complement of conserved, orthologous genes. Here, we study a set of genes comprised of 3 homeodomain transcription factors, one signalling molecule and 6 structural proteins which are implicated in mollusc and brachiopod shell formation, search for their orthologs in transcriptomes or genomes of brachiopods, phoronids and bryozoans, and present expression patterns of 8 of the genes in postmetamorphic juveniles of the rhynchonelliform brachiopod T. transversa. Results: Transcriptome and genome searches for the 10 target genes in the brachiopods Terebratalia transversa, Lingula anatina, Novocrania anomala, the bryozoans Bugula neritina and Membranipora membranacea, and the phoronids Phoronis australis and Phoronopsis harmeri resulted in the recovery of orthologs of the majority of the genes in all taxa. While the full complement of genes was present in all brachiopods with a single exception in L. anatina, a bloc of four genes could consistently not be retrieved from bryozoans and phoronids. The genes engrailed, distal-less, ferritin, perlucin, sp1 and sp2 were shown to be expressed in the biomineralising mantle margin of T. transversa juveniles. Conclusions: The gene expression patterns we recovered indicate that while mineralised shells in brachiopods and molluscs are structurally analogous, their formation builds on a homologous process that involves a conserved complement of orthologous genes. Losses of some of the genes related to biomineralisation in bryozoans and phoronids indicate that loss of the capacity to form mineralised structures occurred already in the phoronid–bryozoan stem group and supports the idea that mineralised skeletons evolved secondarily in some of the bryozoan subclades.publishedVersio