Image processing and pattern recognition for industrial robotic vision

Imperial Users onl

Väsimusmurdude preventsioon maratonijooksjatel

http://www.ester.ee/record=b481777

Une étude comparée de l’utilisation des emprunts et de leurs équivalents arabes dans la terminologie des réseaux sociaux

Cette étude cherche à relever l’usage réel des emprunts dans la terminologie des réseaux sociaux et de leurs doublets concurrents autochtones auprès des usagers arabophones et ceci en fonction de la fréquence attestée dans un corpus de presse. Ce corpus nous a permis de repérer les équivalents autochtones des emprunts choisis qui ont été par la suite attestés dans un corpus d’exclusion de dictionnaires bilingues spécialisés en informatique et de bases de données spécialisées comme la base de données de l’ONU, UNTERM. L’analyse terminologique de la langue de spécialité permet de suivre l’évolution d’une langue comme l’arabe et de relever l’effet de son contact avec les autres langues. Les constats linguistiques de l’étude ont souligné le recours à l’emprunt comme procédé de création néologique en arabe avec ses variantes : littéral et dialectal. Ceci s’explique par le fait que les académies de langue arabe accusent un certain retard quant à la normalisation.This study tries to determine the real use of the loanwords in the terminology of social networks and of their native rival doublets for the Arabic-speaking users and this according to the frequency attested in a corpus of press. This corpus allowed us to locate the native equivalents of the loans loanwords chosen which were afterward then been attested searched in a corpus of exclusion which made up with bilingual dictionaries specialized in computing and from databases such as the UN database UNTERM. The terminological analysis of the specialized language allows to follow the evolution of a language such as Arabic and to raise find the effect of its contacts with the other languages. This study shows that the loan borrowing is a process of neological creation in Arabic with its variants: literal and dialectal Arabic.Le présent ouvrage est financé par le CNRS (projet PICS – franco-polonais EmpNeo) et par l’Institut d’Études Romanes de l’Université de Łód

An automatic sleep apnea analysis with soft computing approaches

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Sleep Apnea (SA) is a common disorder without “age-specific” that affects approximately 2% of women and 4% of men; sleep apnea is characterized by repetitive cessation of breathing during sleep. The consequences of the sleep apnea include daytime sleepiness, impaired cognitive function, impaired memory, neurocognitive dysfunction, and development of cardiovascular disorders, metabolic dysfunction, and impaired quality of life. This thesis investigates the automated detection and prediction of sleep apnea. Many researchers have concentrated on automated detection of sleep apnea, but not much comprehensive or well-ordered work has been done on signal and feature selection or on predicting of the sleep apnea. The objective is to find the best set of signals as input and the best set of features from selected signals that can be used by a machine learning approaches to study sleep apnea. The best set here is not only refers to a smallest set of signals with a good performance in sleep apnea analysis but also consideration for a set of signals that can be easily acquired from patients. During the course of this thesis, several algorithms were developed. These algorithms can be used in sleep apnea studies or in wider machine learning areas. The most important contributions of this thesis can be summarized as below: -Developing a new signal segmentation algorithm designed specifically for sleep apnea by attention to its properties. This algorithm chose times windows with a greater probability of containing at least one sleep apnea event. After that these segmentations are generated, they should be reviewed by the machine learning approaches to be classified as sleep apnea or normal. -Developing a novel Support Vector Machine (SVM)-based approach named Self-Advising Support Vector Machine (SA-SVM) that transfers more knowledge from the training phase of SVM to the test phase. This idea helps SVM to learn from misclassified data in training phase and use this gained knowledge, in the testing phase. This approach can be used in any binary classification problems and it shows also high impact in sleep apnea detection. -Developing a new parallel structure for Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO). Finding the best set of input signals or the best set of features required a huge amount of computation power which a single PSO – or other optimisation approaches- cannot deal with, so a new hierarchical multi-master structure for parallel PSO was developed in this thesis, which quickly revealed its advantages over previous parallel PSO structures. In this thesis real data has been used from Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Sydney. Obtained result shows a good performance in detection and classification of sleep apnea. Together with detection and classification, a prediction of sleep apnea was also considered. The prediction stage examines some famous neural networks structures and demonstrated how to improve the final result by taking advantage of multi neural network approach

Evaluating Preference Stability Among Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease

In the behavior-analytic field, preference assessments are conducted to determine specific items to use as reinforcers to reduce aberrant behavior as well as increase appropriate behavior. We examined the consistency of preference-assessments results among individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) to ensure effective reinforcers are used in behavioral interventions. Specifically, we examined if identified reinforcers remained consistent for individuals with AD throughout the study or if preferences shifted. The experimental procedure consisted of a series of multiple-stimulus preference assessments without replacement (MSWO); data were analyzed for preference shifts. Results showed variability with one individual’s preferences, whereas the other individual’s preferences remained relatively stable

Synthesis of Fluoroflavones as Potential Neuroprotective Agents

Flavones are polyphenol natural products that are known to have neuroprotective effects against many diseases caused by the formation of reactive species. Flavonoids are subgroup of flavones and they are believed to function as antioxidants. Specifically, they target free radicals and eliminate its harmful effect on the cell. Fluoroflavones were designed to improve the potency of the antioxidant activity and potentially be used as neuroprotective agents. A monofluorinated and trifluoromethylated flavone were synthesized by using commercially available fluorination reagents, N-fluorobenzenesulfonimide; and Togni’s or Umemoto\u27s respectively. After the synthesis of the desired flavones and their monofluorinated and trifluoromethylated derivatives, biological testing was conducted. First, antioxidant activity was evaluated by using DPPH antioxidant assay and displayed that the fluorinated flavones are more potent compared to their non-fluorinated derivatives. Second, 19 FNMR experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of fluorination on the antioxidant activity of flavones

Synthesis of Fluoroflavonoids As Potential Antioxidant Against Alzheimer’s Disease.

Overview: Maali Alshammari joined the lab of Professor David A. Colby in spring of 2017; she\u27s currently a third-year Ph.D. student in medicinal chemistry in the graduate program in the Department of BioMolecular Sciences at the University of Mississippi. Maali\u27s project involves the syntheses of fluoroflavones to improve the potency of the antioxidant activity of the original non-fluorinated flavones. The fluoroflavones will potentially be used as neuroprotective agents to prevent the toxic effect of ROS and used to prevent neurogenerative diseases like Alzheimer\u27s. Intellectual Merit: We are in need of medications that prevent Alzheimer\u27s disease or even reverse its damage; all of the approved medications are aimed to manage its symptoms delaying the progression of them; most importantly, none of the approved ones target the toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS). I\u27m designing fluoroflavones to improve the potency of the antioxidant activity and potentially use them as neuroprotective agents. A monofluorinated flavone will be synthesized by using commercially available starting materials and fluorination reagents. After the synthesis of the desired flavones and their monofluorinated derivatives, biological testing will be conducted to see if the fluorinated flavones are more potent than their non-fluorinated derivatives. External Opportunity: I\u27m applying to the 2020 Alzheimer\u27s drug discovery foundation (ADDF) young investigator travel scholarship and award; it also includes graduate students who\u27re conducting research related to Alzheimer\u27s. This funding opportunity will cover the registration fee to attend the 14th drug discovery for neurodegeneration workshop, I will be presenting a poster with my research findings and I will also have the chance to win the outstanding poster presentation award that will be awarded to three individuals from the 25 young investigator travel scholarship winners. Each scholarship provides a name recognition in the program and on the conference website. Attending this workshop will give me insights on the current research projects targeting Alzheimer\u27s and the chance to network with pharmaceutical companies, this meeting which will be held in Philadelphia, PA from April 26th to 28th, 2020, I\u27m planning to submit the abstract (the proposal) in the last week of January, before the deadline on January 31, 2020

Digitization Guidelines for Static & Non-static (Audiovisual) Media: Compliance & Challenges in Academic Libraries

This doctoral dissertation aims to explore digitization practices at academic libraries in the United States. It examines adopted digitization guidelines, levels of compliance with these guidelines, challenges, and solutions. It seeks answers to five research questions in relation to academic libraries’ compliance with static and non-static (audiovisual) media digitization guidelines, encountered challenges, and applied solutions. A mixed methods explanatory research design was adopted for this comparative study. Purposive sampling was applied. The study sample consisted of 68 subjects from doctoral universities with highest and higher research activity based on the 2015 classification issued by The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through three collection methods: document analysis, electronic questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Document analysis was conducted for five sets of digitization guidelines (i.e., ALCTS, BCR’s CDP Digital Imaging Best Practices Working Group, CARLI, FADGI, and NARA), wherein one (i.e., CARLI) consisted of five documents. Open coding was applied to explore themes in qualitative data collected by the electronic questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was applied to examine differences between digitization of static and non-static (audiovisual) media regarding challenges, levels of compliance, availability, and usefulness. The Paired Samples Test was applied only for sets of quantitative data that have normal distribution. Findings revealed differences in the adoption of digitization guidelines for digitizing static and non-static (audiovisual) media. Consistency, Standardization, and Sustainability was the most frequent type of reason for compliance with digitization guidelines adopted for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. Planning and Workflow was the most frequent type of reason for not complying with digitization guidelines adopted for static media, whereas Hardware was the most frequent type of reason for not complying with digitization guidelines for non-static (audiovisual) media. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in levels of compliance, availability, and usefulness between static and non-static (audiovisual) media among ALCTS, consortium/consortia, and a university’s own customized digitization guidelines. Open coding indicated that Funding and Hardware challenges appeared among the three most frequent types of challenges for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests revealed significant differences (with the exception of external funding) between digitization of static and non-static (audiovisual) media in terms of budget, digitization equipment/hardware, digitization software, staff digitization skills, and the need for more professional training. Different types of applied and suggested solutions were explored, wherein Planning and Workflow and Funding solutions were most frequent among the applied and suggested solutions for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. The theoretical implications of this study focus on digitization guidelines and compliance levels with those guidelines, and digitization challenges. Practical implications aim to provide suggestions to enhance development of digitization guidelines, and to reduce the effect of challenges faced in digitizing static and non-static (audiovisual) media

Novel Approaches to the Spectral and Colorimetric Color Reproduction

All the different approaches taken for spectral data acquisition can be narrowed down to two main methods; the first one is using spectrophotometer, spectroradiometer, hyper- and multi- spectral camera through which the spectra can be most probably attained with a high level of accuracy in a direct manner. Nonetheless, the price at which the spectra are acquired is very high. However, there is also a second approached in which the spectra are estimated from the colorimetric information. The second approach, even though it is very cost efficient, is of limited level of accuracy, which could be due to the methods or the dissmiliarity of learning and testing samples used. In this work, through looking upon the spectral estimation in a different way, it is attempted to enhance the accuracy of the spectral estimation procedures which is fulfilled by associating the spectral recovery process with spectral sensitivity variability present in both different human observers and RGB cameras. The work is split into two main sections, namely, theory and practice. In the first section, theory, the main idea of the thesis is examined through simulation, using different observers’ color matching functions (CMFs) obtained from Asano’s vision model and also different cameras’ spectral sensitivities obtained from an open database. The second part of the work is concerned with putting the major idea of the thesis into use and is comprised of three subsections itself. In the first subsection, real cameras and cellphones are used. In the second subsection, using weighted regression, the idea presented in this work, is extended to a series of studies in which spectra are estimated from their corresponding CIEXYZ tristimulus values. In the last subsection, obserevers’ colorimetric responses are simulated using color matching. Finally, it is shown that the methods presented in this work have a great potential to even rival multi-spectral cameras, whose equipment could be as expensive as a spectrophotometer