Bilateral foot drop linked to rapid intentional weight loss and long distance walking.

There are many causes of acute onset foot drop ranging from deep fibular nerve or sciatic nerve injury caused by trauma or a compressive mass such as a neuroma, to spinal cord disorders like disc herniation causing L4-5 radiculopathy, and various muscular dystrophies affecting the tibialis anterior muscle responsible for foot dorsiflexion and eversion. Even brain disorders like MS, stroke or ALS can result in foot drop. We present a case of bilateral foot drop as a complication of rapid 70 lb weight loss which was described in literature previously as “slimmer’s palsy”

Holistic facial composite construction and subsequent lineup identification accuracy: Comparing adults and children

When the police have no suspect, they may ask an eyewitness to construct a facial composite of that suspect from memory. Faces are primarily processed holistically, and recently developed computerised holistic facial composite systems (e.g., EFIT-V) have been designed to match these processes. The reported research compared children aged 6–11 years with adults on their ability to construct a recognisable EFIT-V composite. Adult constructor’s EFIT-Vs received significantly higher composite-suspect likeness ratings from assessors than children’s, although there were some notable exceptions. In comparison to adults, the child constructors also overestimated the composite-suspect likeness of their own EFIT-Vs. In a second phase, there were no differences between adult controls and constructors in correct identification rates from video lineups. However, correct suspect identification rates by child constructors were lower than those of child controls, suggesting that a child’s memory for the suspect can be adversely influenced by composite construction. Nevertheless, all child constructors coped with the demands of the EFIT-V system, and the implications for research, theory and the criminal justice system practice are discussed

An evaluation of post-production facial composite enhancement techniques

Purpose: This article describes four experiments evaluating post-production enhancement techniques with facial composites mainly created using the EFIT-V holistic system. Design/methodology/approach: Each experiment was conducted in two stages. In Stage 1, constructors created between one and four individual composites of unfamiliar targets. These were merged to create morphs, and in Experiment 3, composites were also vertically stretched. In Stage 2, participants familiar with the targets named or provided target-similarity ratings to the images. Findings: In Experiments 1-3, correct naming rates were significantly higher to between-witness 4-morphs, within-witness 4-morphs and vertically stretched composites than to individual composites. In Experiment 4, there was a positive relationship between composite-target similarity ratings and between-witness morph-size (2-, 4-, 8-, 16-morphs). Practical implications: The likelihood of a facial composite being recognised can be improved by morphing and vertical stretch. Originality/value: A greater understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and applied advantage of post-production facial composite techniques should ensure greater acceptance by the criminal justice system, leading to better detection outcomes

Senior Recital: Gage Fisher, trombone

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Bachelor of Music in Performance. Mr. Fisher studies trombone with Wes Funderburk and Tom Gibson.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2205/thumbnail.jp

Holistic facial composite creation and subsequent video line-up eyewitness identification paradigm

The paradigm detailed in this manuscript describes an applied experimental method based on real police investigations during which an eyewitness or victim to a crime may create from memory a holistic facial composite of the culprit with the assistance of a police operator. The aim is that the composite is recognized by someone who believes that they know the culprit. For this paradigm, participants view a culprit actor on video and following a delay, participant-witnesses construct a holistic system facial composite. Controls do not construct a composite. From a series of arrays of computer-generated, but realistic faces, the holistic system construction method primarily requires participant-witnesses to select the facial images most closely meeting their memory of the culprit. Variation between faces in successive arrays is reduced until ideally the final image possesses a close likeness to the culprit. Participant-witness directed tools can also alter facial features, configurations between features and holistic properties (e.g., age, distinctiveness, skin tone), all within a whole face context. The procedure is designed to closely match the holistic manner by which humans’ process faces. On completion, based on their memory of the culprit, ratings of composite-culprit similarity are collected from the participant-witnesses. Similar ratings are collected from culprit-acquaintance assessors, as a marker of composite recognition likelihood. Following a further delay, all participants — including the controls — attempt to identify the culprit in either a culprit-present or culprit-absent video line-up, to replicate circumstances in which the police have located the correct culprit, or an innocent suspect. Data of control and participant-witness line-up outcomes are presented, demonstrating the positive influence of holistic composite construction on identification accuracy. Correlational analyses are conducted to measure the relationship between assessor and participant-witness composite-culprit similarity ratings, delay, identification accuracy, and confidence to examine which factors influence video line-up outcomes

Second Annual Transformative Vertical Flight Concepts Workshop: Enabling New Flight Concepts Through Novel Propulsion and Energy Architectures

On August 3rd and 4th, 2015, a workshop was held at the NASA Ames Research Center, located at the Moffett Federal Airfield in California to explore the aviation communities interest in Transformative Vertical Flight (TVF) Concepts. The Workshop was sponsored by the AHS International (AHS), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and hosted by the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI). This second annual workshop built on the success and enthusiasm generated by the first TVF Workshop held in Washington, DC in August of 2014. The previous Workshop identified the existence of a multi-disciplinary community interested in this topic and established a consensus among the participants that opportunities to establish further collaborations in this area are warranted. The desire to conduct a series of annual workshops augmented by online virtual technical seminars to strengthen the TVF community and continue planning for advocacy and collaboration was a direct outcome of the first Workshop. The second Workshop organizers focused on four desired action-oriented outcomes. The first was to establish and document common stakeholder needs and areas of potential collaborations. This includes advocacy strategies to encourage the future success of unconventional vertiport capable flight concept solutions that are enabled by emerging technologies. The second was to assemble a community that can collaborate on new conceptual design and analysis tools to permit novel configuration paths with far greater multi-disciplinary coupling (i.e., aero-propulsive-control) to be investigated. The third was to establish a community to develop and deploy regulatory guidelines. This community would have the potential to initiate formation of an American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F44 Committee Subgroup for the development of consensus-based certification standards for General Aviation scale vertiport capable flight systems. These standards need to accommodate novel fixed wing concepts that do not fit within the existing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rotorcraft certification framework (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Chapter I, Subchapter C, Part 27). The fourth desired outcome was to launch an information campaign to ensure key U.S. Government agencies understand the potential benefits and industry interest in establishing new vertiport capable flight markets. This record of the Workshop proceedings documents Workshop activities and products including summaries of the video recorded technical presentations, overviews of three breakout sessions (Missions Operational Concepts, Prioritized Technical Challenges, Regulatory Roadmap), and a preliminary draft roadmap framework for TVF

Friday Convocation

Program listing performers and works performe

Toward a common standard for data and specimen provenance in life sciences

Open and practical exchange, dissemination, and reuse of specimens and data have become a fundamental requirement for life sciences research. The quality of the data obtained and thus the findings and knowledge derived is thus significantly influenced by the quality of the samples, the experimental methods, and the data analysis. Therefore, a comprehensive and precise documentation of the pre-analytical conditions, the analytical procedures, and the data processing are essential to be able to assess the validity of the research results. With the increasing importance of the exchange, reuse, and sharing of data and samples, procedures are required that enable cross-organizational documentation, traceability, and non-repudiation. At present, this information on the provenance of samples and data is mostly either sparse, incomplete, or incoherent. Since there is no uniform framework, this information is usually only provided within the organization and not interoperably. At the same time, the collection and sharing of biological and environmental specimens increasingly require definition and documentation of benefit sharing and compliance to regulatory requirements rather than consideration of pure scientific needs. In this publication, we present an ongoing standardization effort to provide trustworthy machine-actionable documentation of the data lineage and specimens. We would like to invite experts from the biotechnology and biomedical fields to further contribute to the standard.</p

Towards a Common Standard for Data and Specimen Provenance in Life Sciences

The exchange of biological material and data has become an issue of major importance for research in biotechnology. At the same time, many reports indicate problems with quality, trustworthiness and reproducibility of research results, mainly due to poor documentation of data generation or collection of samples. Consequently, there is an urgent need for improved and standardized documentation of data and specimen used in research studies. In response to these issues, we are developing a provenance information standard for the biotechnology domain within the ISO Technical Committee 276 “Biotechnology”. The major objectives of the standard, now registered as ISO/WD 23494, are improved reproducibility of research results, enabling the assessment of the quality of biological samples and data, traceability and higher reliability of observations. We are convinced that the standardization project is of substantial interest to a broader audience, who we would also invite to comment and contribute to this comprehensive effort.Manuscript under consideration