12,660 research outputs found
Marshallese Migrants and Poultry Processing
This descriptive study investigates the work and health conditions of Marshallese poultry-plant workers in Northwest Arkansas, a global center of the poultry industry. Poultry processing is very dangerous work including numerous human rights and ethical concerns. Processing work has historically been carried out by marginalized workers, such as women, minorities, and immigrants. The Marshallese, one of the Pacific Islander groups, are the latest wave of migrants sourced as processing workers. A survey was conducted with a site-based, convenience sample of current and former Marshallese poultry-plant workers. The final analysis was based on a total of 198 questionnaires. The study showed that Marshallese poultry workers experienced significant safety and health risks at work. It revealed similarities and differences between the Marshallese and previous worker groups. Although their special visa status makes them very attractive workers, their language barriers and health disparities created challenges for the Marshallese workers and the poultry industry
DiffuPose: Monocular 3D Human Pose Estimation via Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Model
Thanks to the development of 2D keypoint detectors, monocular 3D human pose
estimation (HPE) via 2D-to-3D uplifting approaches have achieved remarkable
improvements. Still, monocular 3D HPE is a challenging problem due to the
inherent depth ambiguities and occlusions. To handle this problem, many
previous works exploit temporal information to mitigate such difficulties.
However, there are many real-world applications where frame sequences are not
accessible. This paper focuses on reconstructing a 3D pose from a single 2D
keypoint detection. Rather than exploiting temporal information, we alleviate
the depth ambiguity by generating multiple 3D pose candidates which can be
mapped to an identical 2D keypoint. We build a novel diffusion-based framework
to effectively sample diverse 3D poses from an off-the-shelf 2D detector. By
considering the correlation between human joints by replacing the conventional
denoising U-Net with graph convolutional network, our approach accomplishes
further performance improvements. We evaluate our method on the widely adopted
Human3.6M and HumanEva-I datasets. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to
prove the efficacy of the proposed method, and they confirm that our model
outperforms state-of-the-art multi-hypothesis 3D HPE methods
Implantation of bone marrow-derived buffy coat can supplement bone marrow stimulation for articular cartilage repair
SummaryObjectiveBone marrow stimulation (BMS) has been regarded as a first line procedure for repair of articular cartilage. However, repaired cartilage from BMS is known to be unlike that of hyaline cartilage and its inner endurance is not guaranteed. The reason presumably came from a shortage of cartilage-forming cells in blood clots derived by BMS. In order to increase repairable cellularity, the feasibility of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat transplantation in repair of large full-thickness cartilage defects was investigated in this study.MethodsRabbits were divided into four groups: the defect remained untreated as a negative control; performance of BMS only (BMS group); BMS followed by supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat (Buffy coat group); transplantation of autologous osteochondral transplantation (AOTS) as a positive control.ResultsRepair of cartilage defects in the Buffy coat group in a rabbit model was more effective than BMS alone and similar to AOTS. Gross findings, histological analysis, histological scoring, immunohistochemistry, and chemical assay demonstrated that supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat after BMS arthroplasty effectively repaired cartilage defects in a rabbit model, and was more effective than BMS arthroplasty alone.ConclusionSupplementation of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat in cases of BMS could be a useful clinical protocol for cartilage repair
Analysis of Laser ARPES from BiSrCaCuO in superconductive state: angle resolved self-energy and fluctuation spectrum
We analyze the ultra high resolution laser angle resolved photo-emission
spectroscopy (ARPES) intensity from the slightly underdoped
BiSrCaCuO in the superconductive (SC) state. The
momentum distribution curves (MDC) were fitted at each energy \w employing
the SC Green's function along several cuts perpendicular to the Fermi surface
with the tilt angle with respect to the nodal cut. The clear
observation of particle-hole mixing was utilized such that the complex
self-energy as a function of is directly obtained from the fitting.
The obtained angle resolved self-energy is then used to deduce the Eliashberg
function \alpha^2 F^{(+)}(\th,\w) in the diagonal channel by inverting the
d-wave Eliashberg equation using the maximum entropy method. Besides a broad
featureless spectrum up to the cutoff energy , the deduced exhibits two peaks around 0.05 eV and 0.015 eV. The former and the broad
feature are already present in the normal state, while the latter emerges only
below . Both peaks become enhanced as is lowered or the angle
moves away from the nodal direction. The implication of these findings are
discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, summited to PR
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Investigations of urethral sphincter activity in mice with bladder hyperalgesia before and after drug administration of gabapentin.
PurposeThis study investigated the effect of gabapentin on lower urinary tract dysfunction focusing on urethral activities and cystitis-induced hyperalgesia in a mouse model of painful bladder syndrome/interstitial cystitis (PBS/IC). The electromyography (EMG) of external urethral sphincter (EUS) was difficult to obtain, but contained useful information to examine the drug effect in mice.MethodsFemale C57BL/6J mice were intraperitoneally (ip) administration with either saline or 200 mg/kg of cyclophosphamide (CYP) 48 h before experimental evaluation. Cystitis mice were treated with administration of gabapentin (25 or 50 mg/kg, ip). Cystometry and EUS EMG were obtained and analyzed during continuous bladder infusion. The visceral pain-related visceromotor reflex (VMR) was recorded in response to isotonic bladder distension.ResultsCystitis mice showed shorter inter-contraction intervals and increased occurrence of non-voiding contractions during bladder infusion, with increased VMR during isotonic bladder distension, indicating cystitis-induced bladder hyperalgesia. Gabapentin (50 mg/kg) suppressed effects of CYP on cystometry, but not on EUS EMG activity, during bladder infusion. The effect on urodynamic recordings lasted 4 h. VMR was significantly reduced by gabapentin.ConclusionsThe present study showed that CYP-induced cystitis in mice is a model of visceral hyperalgesia affecting detrusor contractions, not urethral activations. The technique of using EUS EMG to evaluate the drug effects on urethral activities is novel and useful for future investigations. Gabapentin can be as a potential treatment for detrusor overactivity and PBS/IC
Conventionalization, Bifurcation, and Quality of Life: Certified and Non-Certified Organic Farmers in Texas
Organic agriculture has been advanced as a production system that improves environmental quality and supports rural community development. Recent developments in organics have called into question both assertions. Researchers have argued that the advent of national-level organic standards has contributed to the conventionalization and bifurcation of organics. Conventionalization refers to the process by which organic agriculture increasingly takes on the characteristics of mainstream industrial agriculture. Bifurcation refers to the process by which the organic agriculture adopts a dual-structure of smaller, lifestyle-oriented producers and larger, industrial-scale producers. This research examines the conventionalization and bifurcation theses through a comparison of certified organic and non-certified organic producers in Texas. We conclude that the case of organics in Texas provides mixed support for the conventionalization thesis
Global Stability of FAST TCP in Single-Link Single-Source Network
We consider a single-link single-source network with FAST TCP source, and propose a static approximation of queuing delay dynamics at the link. The static approximation turns out to be a form with network feedback delay, which enables to analyze FAST TCP reflecting the effect of network feedback delay. Based on a continuous-time dynamic model of FAST TCP, we achieve the boundedness of window size and a sufficient condition for global asymptotic stability. The simulation results illustrate the validity of the sufficient condition for global asymptotic stability
Bandwidth-Controlled Insulator-Metal Transition and Correlated Metallic State in 5 Transition Metal Oxides SrIrO (=1, 2, and )
We investigated the electronic structures of the 5 Ruddlesden-Popper
series SrIrO (=1, 2, and ) using optical
spectroscopy and first-principles calculations. As 5 orbitals are spatially
more extended than 3 or 4 orbitals, it has been widely accepted that
correlation effects are minimal in 5 compounds. However, we observed a
bandwidth-controlled transition from a Mott insulator to a metal as we
increased . In addition, the artificially synthesized perovskite SrIrO
showed a very large mass enhancement of about 6, indicating that it was in a
correlated metallic state
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