Pattern and Presentation of Vitreo-Retinal Diseases: An Analysis of Retrospective Data at a Tertiary Eye Care Center in Nepal

Purpose: We examined patients presenting in a tertiary eye hospital in Nepal, focusing on information relevant to screening and management programs for vitreo-retinal (VR) disease. Design: Retrospective, cross-sectional study. Methods: We reviewed all patients presenting for the first time to the VR-clinic over 1 year. We quantified patient demography, symptoms and duration, systemic diseases, ophthalmological examinations, diagnostic investigations, and final diagnoses. Results: Of the 1905 cases, 1148 were male (60.3%). The 25th percentile of ages was 29 and 38 years for male and female, respectively; thus, female presented later (P < 0.0001). Hypertension was the commonest systemic disease (40.8%), followed by diabetes (32.5%). Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) affected 447 eyes (11.8%) and 416 eyes (10.9%), respectively. Male and female AMD and DR patients did not differ in age or disease duration. Similarly, age or disease duration for DR did not correlate with severity. Asymmetry of disease severity between eyes with AMD and DR was largest in patients with 1 normal eye. Presenting acuity was asymmetric between eyes (P < 0.0001) with people more often reporting once their right eyes had acuity of 6/18 or worse. Conclusions: The screening of blood pressure and glucose levels combined with fundus photography could prevent many from progressing to life-changing visual impairment and blindness. Later reporting by females began at childbearing age; therefore, education and ocular screening could be usefully coupled in reproductive health programs. Clubbing VR disease screening with other established health programs like diabetes control program, hypertension clinics, school health program, and so on, would provide economical and sustainable approach

Neue Untersuchungen zu den (prä-)historischen Terrassen von Ramosch

Die gut erhaltene Terrassenlandschaft oberhalb von Ramosch hat eine lange Geschichte, deren ackerbauliche Nutzung im Mittelalter durch historische Quellen belegt ist. Doch bereits die prähistorische Siedlung auf der Mottata beweist, dass sie in eine stark vom Menschen überprägte Landschaft eingebettet war. Um der Frage nach der Entwicklung der Terrassen nachzugehen, engagiert sich seit einigen Jahren ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt mit dem Ursprung dieser Anlagen.European Prehistor

What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works

This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment

Image analysis and neural networks in the process of identifying selected mechanical damage to maize caryopses

Celem projektu badawczego było opracowanie modelu neuronowego do identyfikacji mechanicznych uszkodzeń ziarna kukurydzy na podstawie ich cyfrowych fotografii. Wybrany został zestaw cech charakterystycznych na podstawie, których możliwa jest klasyfikacja ziarniaków na zdrowe i uszkodzone. W wyniku badań otrzymano sztuczną sieć neuronową typu perceptron wielowarstwowy charakteryzującą się zdolnościami identyfikacyjnymi zbliżonymi do umiejętności człowieka.The subject of the project was to develop a neural model for the identification of selected mechanical damage to maize caryopses on the basis of digital photographs. The author has selected a set of features that distinguish damaged t healthy caryopses. As a result of this study it has been obtained an artificial neural network of a multilayer perceptron type whose identification capacity is near of the human 's one

Wizualna ocena jakości jęczmienia browarnego z wykorzystaniem neuronowej analizy obrazu

The quality evaluation is one of the most important stages of the production processes. The same as regards the beer production and its components: hop, yeast, malting barley and other ingredients. Presented project deals with the complex quality evaluation of malting barley used for malt production. Its main goal is to elaborate complete methodology for the identification of varieties, the level of contamination and other visual features of malting barley with the use of computer science technologies, such as neural image analysis.Jednym z najważniejszych etapów w procesie produkcyjnym jest ocena jakości. Podobnie jest w produkcji piwa i jego składników: chmielu, drożdży, jęczmienia browarnego i innych. Przedstawiony projekt dotyczy kompleksowej oceny jakości jęcz-mienia browarnego używanego do produkcji słodu. Jego głównym celem jest opracowanie kompletnej metodyki identyfikacji odmian, poziom zanieczyszczenia i innych wizualnych cech jęczmienia browarnego z wykorzystaniem technologii informatycznych opartych na neuronowej analizy obrazu

Erratum of “RP-HPLC analysis of furosine and acid-soluble β-lactoglobulin to assess the heat load of extended shelf life milk samples in Austria”

Recent trends to extend the shelf life of pasteurized milk, without the negative flavour normally associated with ultra-high-temperature (UHT) milk, have resulted in the development of extended shelf life (ESL) milk. Acid-soluble β-lactoglobulin (β-Lg) and furosine contents were chosen as relevant indicators for heat load of ESL milk products. RP-HPLC methods were developed using the same column (Symmetry 300™, Waters), which enabled the separation of whey proteins within 22 min; furosine was analysed using ion-pair RP-HPLC within 8 min. Electrophoresis was used as a high-throughput and cost-effective screening method to assess the impact of thermal processes on milk and to distinguish different categories of heat-treated milk samples. Liquid milk samples (n = 128; including 7 raw, 33 pasteurized, 71 ESL, and 17 UHT milk samples) were obtained from retail outlets in Austria and analysed. Only 45% of the analysed samples designated as ESL milk showed furosine contents  1800 mg·L−1 milk, which had been discussed as threshold levels for ESL milk. A further 55% of the analysed ESL milk samples had low acid-soluble β-Lg ( 40 mg·100 g−1 protein), levels comparable to the excessive heat load of UHT milk. Thus, there is an urgent need for an EU regulation to define legal limits for the tolerable heat load of ESL milk as soon as possible

Identification process of corn and barley kernels damages using neural image analysis

Celem projektu badawczego było opracowanie modelu neuronowego do identyfikacji mechanicznych uszkodzeń ziarniaków na podstawie ich cyfrowych fotografii. Wybrany został zestaw cech charakterystycznych na podstawie, których możliwa jest klasyfikacja ziarniaków na zdrowe i uszkodzone. W wyniku badań otrzymano sztuczną sieć neuronową typu perceptron wie-lowarstwowy charakteryzującą się zdolnościami identyfikacyjnymi zbliżonymi do umiejętności człowieka.The subject of the study was to develop a neural model for identification of mechanical damage to grain caryopses based on digital photographs. The authors has selected a set of universal features that distinguish damaged and healthy caryopses. As a result of this study it has been performed an artificial neural network of a multilayer perceptron type whose identification capacity is near of the human' s one