Point cloud segmentation using hierarchical tree for architectural models

Recent developments in the 3D scanning technologies have made the generation of highly accurate 3D point clouds relatively easy but the segmentation of these point clouds remains a challenging area. A number of techniques have set precedent of either planar or primitive based segmentation in literature. In this work, we present a novel and an effective primitive based point cloud segmentation algorithm. The primary focus, i.e. the main technical contribution of our method is a hierarchical tree which iteratively divides the point cloud into segments. This tree uses an exclusive energy function and a 3D convolutional neural network, HollowNets to classify the segments. We test the efficacy of our proposed approach using both real and synthetic data obtaining an accuracy greater than 90% for domes and minarets.Comment: 9 pages. 10 figures. Submitted in EuroGraphics 201

Effect of local Television dramas on Consumer Behavior of females

The objective of this research was to explore the effect of local Television dramas on consumer behavior of females and to derive a model for this effect. In order to accomplish this objective survey was conducted using convenience sampling, with a sample size of 250 Pakistani females. Data was collected through questionnaire consisting of fifteen questions on a likert scale. Results show that local Television dramas affect consumer behavior of females. There are four factors behind this effect i.e. product liking, influence of dramas on society, viewers trust and trendsetting. This research implies that marketers should use local Television dramas as a tool for marketing and promoting their goods and services. It has discovered a new medium for firms and organizations to conduct marketing activities. Keywords: Consumer, Consumer buying behavior, Television, Cultivation theor

Using Computed Tomography Perfusion to Evaluate the Blood-Brain-Barrier and Blood-Tumor-Barrier Response following Focused Ultrasound Sonication with Microbubble Administration

The blood-brain-barrier (BBB) is the single most limiting factor in the delivery of neurotherapeutics into the brain. Focused ultrasound sonication combined with intravenous microbubble administration (FUSwMB) is a novel technique that can transiently disrupt the BBB, with minimal vascular or tissue damage, allowing for localized drug delivery over the targeted region. The goals of this thesis are to: 1) use computed tomography (CT) perfusion to measure the permeability surface area product (PS) following USwMB in normal rabbits with an intact BBB, and 2) to evaluate the blood-tumor-barrier (BTB) PS response following FUSwMB in a C6 rat glioma model

Do All Roads Really Lead to Rome? Learnings from Comparative Analysis using SPR, NMR, & X-Ray Crystallography to Optimize Fragment Screening in Drug Discovery.

There are several biophysical methods developed to rapidly identify weakly binding fragments to a target protein. X-ray crystallography provides structural information that is crucial for fragment optimization, however there are several criteria that must be met for a successful fragment screening including the production of soakable and well-diffracting crystals. Therefore, having a reliable cascade of screening methods to be used as pre-screens prior to labor-intensive X-ray crystallography would be extremely beneficial. This would allow the filtering of compounds as the screening progresses so that only the most promising hits remain. But which method should be the one to start the screening cascade? In this work, various sets of fragment libraries were screened against three different proteins; namely tRNA guanine transglycosylase (TGT) an important protein in Shigella, membrane associated protein peroxin 14 (PEX14) of T. Brucei, and endothiapepsin (EP), to investigate whether different screening methods will reveal similar collections of putative binders. The detailed comparative analysis of the findings obtained by the different methods is discussed in this thesis. Shigellosis, an acute bacterial infection of the intestine, is caused by the gram-negative Shigella bacterium whose pathogenicity is reliant on virulence factors (VirF) required to invade epithelial cells. The expression of these VirF is modulated by TGT. Strategies developed to inhibit TGT include potent active-site inhibitors to block the binding of tRNA, thereby preventing the transcription of the virulence factors. Our 96-fragment library was screened against TGT using SPR, NMR, and X-ray crystallography, as described in Chapter 2. A total of 81 fragments were screened in SPR using a direct binding assay approach, revealing a hit rate of 12%. A total of 77 fragments were screened in NMR revealing a hit rate of 29%. High-resolution crystal structures were also collected for the entire fragment library by soaking, revealing a hit rate of 8%. Upon comparison of all discovered fragment hits no overlaps from all three methods were found. Several factors are responsible for this finding such as exclusion of fragments from individual screens due to technical reasons. In detail, four X-ray hits were excluded from the SPR and NMR screens, two SPR hits were discarded from the NMR screen, and five NMR hits were never subjected to the SPR screen. SPR and NMR are currently the most commonly applied primary fragment screening techniques, however, our results suggest that if they would have been applied as incipient methods of a screening cascade, they would have missed three binders discovered by a subsequently applied, more elaborate crystallographic screen. X-ray crystallography allows the detection of specific binders that may be too weak binders to be detected by SPR and even by NMR but can still provide valid structural information to support the search for appropriate starting points in lead discovery. Additionally, MD simulations of the apo wild type TGT have predicted the opening of a transient sub-pocket located above the guanine/preQ1 pocket, which suggested a strategy to target this new binding site for the design of new inhibitors against TGT following a structure- based drug design concept which is also discussed in section 2.3. The human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as the sleeping sickness, is a vector-borne parasitic disease caused by T. brucei and transmitted to humans by bites of the tsetse fly. T. brucei lacks feedback allosteric regulation of early steps in glycolysis but compartmentalizes the relevant enzymes within organelles called glycosomes. PEX14, a peroxin protein essential for biogenesis of glycosomes, forms an important protein-protein interaction with PEX5, an import receptor that transports cytoplasmic glycosomal enzymes into the organelle. Disrupting the PEX14/PEX5 interaction leads to the accumulation of glycosomal enzymes in the cytosol, depletion of ATP, glucose toxicity, metabolic collapse and death of T. brucei. This disruption can be achieved through small molecules that bind to and block PEX14, preventing PEX5 binding. A previous NMR screening of a fragment library resulted in fragment hits that bind to the N-terminal domain (NTD) of T. brucei PEX14. In this project, we attempted to validate these hits through X-ray crystallography by soaking, to allow visualization of the fragment interactions. The promising fragment hits would then be optimized into more potent lead compounds. Crystallization of the NTD PEX14 with a mutation in the first residue (E1W) revealed blocked binding pockets, as described in Chapter 3. The purpose of the added tryptophan was to render fluorescent properties to the short NTD construct which lacked fluorescent amino acids. However, this tryptophan was found to block the binding pockets of its neighboring crystal mates in the protein crystal, rendering a crystal form impossible to use for soaking. Attempts to find new crystal forms with free pockets were unsuccessful, as the small size of the protein and the hydrophobic nature of tryptophan rendered tightly packed protein crystals that block the binding pockets of neighboring crystal mates. Virtual Screening to discover novel ligands for co-crystallization revealed a ligand that aids the crystallization of the E1W PEX14 variant in the same space group but with a slightly different packing. This produced a crystal form that proved successful for fragment soaking as it enabled the binding of two additional fragment hits binding to further protein pockets. Additionally, the wild type form of PEX14 which lacks the tryptophan residue and thus has free binding pockets was crystallized. This enabled the soaking of a previously designed lead compound in different pockets of the PEX5 binding site. By obtaining a crystal structure of this complex at a resolution of 1.8 Å, the feasibility of using wild type PEX14 crystals for further fragment screening has been demonstrated. Endothiapepsin is a member of the pepsin-like aspartic proteases responsible for the hydrolytic cleavage of peptide substrates. Owing to its high degree of similarity to other pharmacologically relevant aspartic proteases, it has served as the model enzyme for studying their mechanism and to discover first lead structures. In previous work done by other members from our group to identify and characterize endothiapepsin binders, X-ray crystallography was consulted as a primary fragment screening method and its hit identification potential was compared to several biochemical and biophysical screening methods. The fragment library screened was designed for general purposes and contained 361 entries. Comparison of the overlap in the hit rates of the different methods to that of X-ray crystallography revealed a low overlap, with the RDA having the highest overlap at 7% and MS having the lowest overlap at 1% followed by STD NMR at 3%. To understand the reason behind the low overlap, two of these screening techniques were prioritized for closer analysis as described in Chapter 4. The 71 X-ray detected fragment hits were selected and rescreened again with STD NMR under slightly different buffer conditions, in addition to WaterLOGSY NMR experiments. The second STD NMR screen detected almost double the amount of hits as the initial one, and the Water LOGSY screen had the highest correlation from the NMR methods to the X-ray hits at 69%. This comparative analysis also revealed the phenomena of active site fragment displacement by use of so-called reporter ligands and that non-deuterated water in STD NMR may lead to false negatives. The entire 361 fragment library was also screened with SPR using an inhibition in solution assay, adding another biophysical method for our comparative analysis to give us further insight of which conditions are crucial to maintain while transferring across different techniques. The resulting hit rate from SPR was 34%, correlating to an overlap of 11% with the X-ray hits - the highest correlation between screening methods reported by us thus far. Finally, we also studied fragment detection and cocktailing in crystallography in comparison to fragment cocktailing in NMR. From this we concluded that cocktailing in crystallography can also lead to false negatives due to fragment competitive behavior and can reveal a different binding mode for a given fragment compared to the adopted geometry found when soaked individually. As for NMR, despite the ability to detect competitive binding of fragments due to the temporary binding and unbinding events, the parallel binding and thus detection of fragments is not always guaranteed as seen in 20% of the fragments we screened, in addition to our observation that the detection of fragments in cocktail NMR may also depend on the comparison of the cocktail set they are a part of

Renin Angiotensin System & Sympathetic Nervous System In The Progression Of Pressure Overload Cardiac Hypertrophy And The Role Of A1 Adrenoceptor Subtypes In The Control Of Renal Haemodynamics In Left Ventricular Hypertrophy

Hipertrofi ventrikel kiri (LVH) telah dikenal pasti sebagai faktor penyebab tunggal bagi penyakit arteri koronari, kematian mengejut, lumpuh dan kegagalan jantung. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) has been identified as an independent risk factor in coronary artery disease, sudden death, stroke and heart failure

School teachers\u27 perspectives on homework: a comparative study

Homework practices vary widely among teachers. Some teachers make well planned assignments that combine learning and pleasure. Others use homework as a routine to provide students with drills on important activities. These wide variations stem from the teachers\u27 different attitudes and opinions on homework. This research examines the perspectives of teachers, working in schools operating in Egypt whether Languagel or International, on homework. It compares the view points and practices of teachers working in Egyptian Language Schools to those of teachers working in International Schools located in Cairo. The research addresses the question: What are teachers\u27 perspectives and practices of homework in schools, whether Language or International, within the upper elementary and middle school grades operating in Cairo, Egypt? This study analyzes quantitative data through a survey distributed to teachers working in Language and International Schools. The study findings indicate that teachers\u27 opinions and practices of homework do not significantly vary in these settings. Homework has its own culture that affects teachers\u27perceptions and practices, regardless of the setting. The study concludes with a series of recommendations that would enable teachers to improve the quality of homework as well as help students be successful with it

Evaluate of Static Information Visible in Online Newspapers

According to recent online newspapers strategy to increase audience' trust in receiving involved facts and provide the opportunities to lead readers by reaching access at a huge number of points and facilitate browsing.There are many attempts to increase the interest of audience to the online newspapers by offering different static visible styles to interpret information. This research paper aims to introduce a brief consideration of online newspapers and data-driven journalism, also to perceive information static visible styles according to data visualization and information graphics, depending on data volume and regardless type of contents.Employs descriptive and analytically approach to unfold the current trends to Information visible of the globe online newspapers and find that by gathering samples from world online newspapers to explore the processing methods to present information visible.As a result, it has found several styles to use a static visual information of journalism data in the online newspapers, due to the quantity and characteristics of data and information.Concludes with the recommendation that static information visible should take obvious steps to increase the usage of the online newspapers by their intended audience. Keywords: Information Visible, Online Newspaper, Data Driven, Data Visualizations Tools, Information graphic Styles

Aided evoked cortical potential: An objective validation tool for hearing aid benefit

AbstractIntroductionThe verified suitable hearing aid gain does not guarantee a benefit from the hearing aid. The aided pure-tone threshold and the speech tests constitute main validation tests, which can be an enigma when dealing with infants and young children. Accordingly, there is growing need for an applicable objective test that represents aided thresholds and cortical processing of amplified sounds.ObjectiveThis work was designed to incorporate the aided evoked cortical potential (AECP) testing in hearing aid benefit assessment battery of children.MethodologyThe study involved 10 young children with the history of regular hearing aid using for the correction of mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss. Aided AECP consisting of P1, N1, P2 and N2 waves was measured for them using 500 and 4000Hz tone bursts and ga- and wa-syllables.ResultsThe potential was traced in all subjects with different degrees of reproducibility of waves. It paralleled the speech recognition ability with reasonable correction values to the aided behavioral thresholds.ConclusionsThe tracing of aided evoked cortical potential constituted a valuable tool for assessment of hearing aid benefit. It can introduce valid information about the frequency specific aided hearing thresholds and the speech perception ability. The total number of emerged waves in the potential revealed more selectivity to cortical function than the latency parameter

Evaluation of Interactive Journalistic Design in the Egyptian Daily Online Newspapers

Nowadays, the Interactive Journalistic design in the Egyptian daily online newspapers has become as a general reality. The Egyptian online newspapers utilize different types of Interactive features, but not on a regular basis. This study examined top three of local online newspapers, according to top Alexa rank and more visitor's number, also according to the specific fields of interested readers, like one that specialized in breaking news, other that are focused on the reports and articles, and finally that interested to present specific topics such as sports, aims through characterizing front pages of them, and the types of Interactive Journalistic design used, regardless the content elements.This paper shows that they still lag behind in the use of data visualization and do not utilize all types of interactive features. They mainly outsource services for data visualization packages or illustration-based graphics. They do not have separate or specialized departments for digital data visualization. They utilize of interactive features such as mouse-over, clicking on, hyperlinks, static and dynamic visualization only as images without any used the modern globally data visualization styles, and sharing to social medias, but do not combine data visualization with news stories. Type-based graphics are more frequently used than charts and illustration-based graphics. also, it can be seen data visualization as separately to the text and not an essential part of the journalism content. Keywords: Information design, data visualization, online newspapers, interactive feature

The Gulf War, the New World Order and the Future of the Middle East

Historians and social scientists with a penchant for date and time will probably report the onset of the Persian Gulf War as either August 2, 1990, or January 15, 1991; they will likely report its end as February 28, 1991. They will also likely attribute this war primarily to the expansionist policies of Saddam Hussein of Iraq