A New Method of Blind Deconvolution for Colour Fundus Retinal Images

Fundus retinal imaging is widely used in the diagnosis and management of eye disease. Blur commonly occurs in the acquisition and when it is severe the resulting loss of resolution hampers accurate clinical assessment. In this paper, we present a new technique to address this challenging problem. We make use of implicitly constrained image deblurring, which is known to provide improved results over unconstrained and explicitly constrained methods, and build this into a multi-channel variational framework for parametric deblurring. We propose a new method for automatically selecting the regularisation parameter in the absence of the true (sharp) image using vessel segmentation. We then modify the model to include a regularisation coefficient function which is dependent on an available image mask in order to avoid potential inaccuracies caused by the addition of artificial masks. We present experimental results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our new method

A Neurospora crassa mutant which overaccumulates carotenoid pigments

A Neurospora crassa mutant which overaccumulates carotenoid pigment

In the land of becoming: the gendered experience of communication doctoral students

This article investigates two aspects of the experience of communications graduate students. It examines their relations with their departments and the academic staff most close to their work (supervisors and mentors), and the existence and impact of other factors, such as age and dependants, on the duration of their studies. Despite the differences of the educational systems and socio-economic factors between countries, the findings show that the experience of the communications doctoral student is gender specific. To that a number of factors may play an important role such as academic environment and personal/private life commitments

Detection of three closely located single nucleotide polymorphisms in the EAAT2 promoter: Comparison of single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP), pyrosequencing and Sanger sequencing

Background: Single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) is still a frequently used genotyping method across different fields for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) due to its simplicity, requirement for basic equipment accessible in most laboratories and low cost. This technique was previously used to detect rs4354668:A > C (g.-181A > C) SNP in the promoter of astroglial glutamate transporter (EAAT2) and the same approach was initially used here to investigate this promoter region in a cohort of newborns.Results: Unexpectedly, four distinct DNA migration patterns were identified by SSCP. Sanger sequencing revealed two additional SNPs: g.-200C > A and g.-168C > T giving a rise to a total of ten EAAT2 promoter variants. SSCP failed to distinguish these variants reliably and thus pyrosequencing assays were developed. g.-168C > T was found in heterozygous form in one infant only with minor allele frequency (MAF) of 0.0023. In contrast, g.-200C > A and -181A > C were more common (with MAF of 0.46 and 0.49, respectively) and showed string evidence of linkage disequilibrium (LD). In a systematic comparison, 16% of samples were miss-classified by SSCP with 25-31% errors in the identification of the wild-type and homozygote mutant genotypes compared to pyrosequencing or Sanger sequencing. In contrast, SSCP and pyrosequencing of an unrelated single SNP (rs1835740:C > T), showed 94% concordance.Conclusion: Our data suggest that SSCP cannot always detect reliably several closely located SNPs. Furthermore, caution is needed in the interpretation of the association studies linking only one of the co-inherited SNPs in the EAAT2 promoter to human diseases. © 2014 Rajatileka et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

EXPRESS: The integration of head and body cues during the perception of social interactions

Humans spend a large proportion of time participating in social interactions. The ability to accurately detect and respond to human interactions is vital for social functioning, from early childhood through to older adulthood. This detection ability arguably relies on integrating sensory information from the interactants. Within the visual modality, directional information from a person’s eyes, head, and body are integrated to inform where another person is looking and who they are interacting with. To date, social cue integration research has focused largely on the perception of isolated individuals. Across two experiments, we investigated whether observers integrate body information with head information when determining whether two people are interacting, and manipulated frame of reference (one of the interactants facing observer vs. facing away from observer) and the eye-region visibility of the interactant. Results demonstrate that individuals integrate information from the body with head information when perceiving dyadic interactions, and that integration is influenced by the frame of reference and visibility of the eye-region. Interestingly, self-reported autistics traits were associated with a stronger influence of body information on interaction perception, but only when the eye-region was visible. This study investigated the recognition of dyadic interactions using whole-body stimuli while manipulating eye visibility and frame of reference, and provides crucial insights into social cue integration, as well as how autistic traits affect cue integration, during perception of social interactions

The Connection Between Diffuse Light and Intracluster Planetary Nebulae in the Virgo Cluster

We compare the distribution of diffuse intracluster light detected in the Virgo Cluster via broadband imaging with that inferred from searches for intracluster planetary nebulae (IPNe). We find a rough correspondence on large scales (~ 100 kpc) between the two, but with very large scatter (~ 1.3 mag/arcsec^2). On smaller scales (1 -- 10 kpc), the presence or absence of correlation is clearly dependent on the underlying surface brightness. On these scales, we find a correlation in regions of higher surface brightness (mu_V < ~27) which are dominated by the halos of large galaxies such as M87, M86, and M84. In those cases, we are likely tracing PNe associated with galaxies rather than true IPNe. In true intracluster fields, at lower surface brightness, the correlation between luminosity and IPN candidates is much weaker. While a correlation between broadband light and IPNe is expected based on stellar populations, a variety of statistical, physical, and methodological effects can act to wash out this correlation and explain the lack of a strong correlation at lower surface brightness found here. [abridged