134 research outputs found
Separation of Overlapping and Touching Lines within Handwritten Arabic Documents
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comInternational audienceIn this paper, we propose an approach for the separation of overlapping and touching lines within handwritten Arabic documents. Our approach is based on the morphology analysis of the terminal letters of Arabic words. Starting from 4 categories of possible endings, we use the angular variance to follow the connection and separate the endings. The proposed separation scheme has been evaluated on 100 documents contains 640 overlapping and touching occurrences reaching an accuracy of about 96.88%
Superdiffusivity of the 1D lattice Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation
The continuum Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in one dimension is lattice
discretized in such a way that the drift part is divergence free. This allows
to determine explicitly the stationary measures. We map the lattice KPZ
equation to a bosonic field theory which has a cubic anti-hermitian
nonlinearity. Thereby it is established that the stationary two-point function
spreads superdiffusively.Comment: 21 page
Restoration of supersymmetric Slavnov-Taylor and Ward identities in presence of soft and spontaneous symmetry breaking
Supersymmetric Slavnov-Taylor and Ward identities are investigated in
presence of soft and spontaneous symmetry breaking. We consider an abelian
model where soft supersymmetry breaking yields a mass splitting between
electron and selectron and triggers spontaneous symmetry breaking, and we
derive corresponding identities that relate the electron and selectron masses
with the Yukawa coupling. We demonstrate that the identities are valid in
dimensional reduction and invalid in dimensional regularization and compute the
necessary symmetry-restoring counterterms.Comment: 35 pages, LaTeX, 9 postscript figure
Nuclear effects in the Drell-Yan process at very high energies
We study Drell-Yan (DY) dilepton production in proton(deuterium)-nucleus and
in nucleus-nucleus collisions within the light-cone color dipole formalism.
This approach is especially suitable for predicting nuclear effects in the DY
cross section for heavy ion collisions, as it provides the impact parameter
dependence of nuclear shadowing and transverse momentum broadening, quantities
that are not available from the standard parton model. For p(D)+A collisions we
calculate nuclear shadowing and investigate nuclear modification of the DY
transverse momentum distribution at RHIC and LHC for kinematics corresponding
to coherence length much longer than the nuclear size. Calculations are
performed separately for transversely and longitudinally polarized DY photons,
and predictions are presented for the dilepton angular distribution.
Furthermore, we calculate nuclear broadening of the mean transverse momentum
squared of DY dileptons as function of the nuclear mass number and energy. We
also predict nuclear effects for the cross section of the DY process in heavy
ion collisions. We found a substantial nuclear shadowing for valence quarks,
stronger than for the sea.Comment: 46 pages, 18 figures, title changed and some discussion added,
accepted for publication in PR
Two-species percolation and Scaling theory of the metal-insulator transition in two dimensions
Recently, a simple non-interacting-electron model, combining local quantum
tunneling via quantum point contacts and global classical percolation, has been
introduced in order to describe the observed ``metal-insulator transition'' in
two dimensions [1]. Here, based upon that model, a two-species-percolation
scaling theory is introduced and compared to the experimental data. The two
species in this model are, on one hand, the ``metallic'' point contacts, whose
critical energy lies below the Fermi energy, and on the other hand, the
insulating quantum point contacts. It is shown that many features of the
experiments, such as the exponential dependence of the resistance on
temperature on the metallic side, the linear dependence of the exponent on
density, the scale of the critical resistance, the quenching of the
metallic phase by a parallel magnetic field and the non-monotonic dependence of
the critical density on a perpendicular magnetic field, can be naturally
explained by the model.
Moreover, details such as the nonmonotonic dependence of the resistance on
temperature or the inflection point of the resistance vs. parallel magnetic are
also a natural consequence of the theory. The calculated parallel field
dependence of the critical density agrees excellently with experiments, and is
used to deduce an experimental value of the confining energy in the vertical
direction. It is also shown that the resistance on the ``metallic'' side can
decrease with decreasing temperature by an arbitrary factor in the degenerate
regime ().Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
What is the prevalence of fear of cancer recurrence in cancer survivors and patients?:A systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis
OBJECTIVE: Care for fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is considered the most common unmet need among cancer survivors. Yet the prevalence of FCR and predisposing factors remain inconclusive. To support targeted care, we provide a comprehensive overview of the prevalence and severity of FCR among cancer survivors and patients, as measured using the short form of the validated Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory (FCRI-SF). We also report on associations between FCR and clinical and demographic characteristics. METHODS: This is a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis on the prevalence of FCR. In the review, we included all studies that used the FCRI-SF with adult (≥18 years) cancer survivors and patients. Date of search: 7 February 2020. Risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool. RESULTS: IPD were requested from 87 unique studies and provided for 46 studies comprising 11,226 participants from 13 countries. 9311 respondents were included for the main analyses. On the FCRI-SF (range 0-36), 58.8% of respondents scored ≥13, 45.1% scored ≥16 and 19.2% scored ≥22. FCR decreased with age and women reported more FCR than men. FCR was found across cancer types and continents and for all time periods since cancer diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: FCR affects a considerable number of cancer survivors and patients. It is therefore important that healthcare providers discuss this issue with their patients and provide treatment when needed. Further research is needed to investigate how best to prevent and treat FCR and to identify other factors associated with FCR. The protocol was prospectively registered (PROSPERO CRD42020142185)
Genome-wide meta-analyses reveal novel loci for verbal short-term memory and learning
Understanding the genomic basis of memory processes may help in combating neurodegenerative disorders. Hence, we examined the associations of common genetic variants with verbal short-term memory and verbal learning in adults without dementia or stroke (N = 53,637). We identified novel loci in the intronic region of CDH18, and at 13q21 and 3p21.1, as well as an expected signal in the APOE/APOC1/TOMM40 region. These results replicated in an independent sample. Functional and bioinformatic analyses supported many of these loci and further implicated POC1. We showed that polygenic score for verbal learning associated with brain activation in right parieto-occipital region during working memory task. Finally, we showed genetic correlations of these memory traits with several neurocognitive and health outcomes. Our findings suggest a role of several genomic loci in verbal memory processes
A measurement of B(D+S → φl+ν) B(D+S → φπ+)
Using the CLEO II detector at CESR, we have measured the ratio of branching fractions B (D + S → φl + ν) B (D + S → φπ + ) = 0.54 ± 0.05 ± 0.04 . We use this measurement to obtain a model dependent estimate of B (D + S → φπ + )
Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol
High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol—which is a marker of cardiovascular risk—changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million–4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.</p
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