Recognition of activities of daily living in natural “at home” scenario for assessment of Alzheimer's disease patients

In this paper we tackle the problem of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) recognition from wearable videos in a Home Clinical scenario. The aim of this research is to provide an accessible and yet detailed video-based navigation interface of patients with dementia/Alzheimer disease to doctors and caregivers. A joint work between a memory clinic and computer vision scientists enabled studying real-case life scenarios of a dyad couple consisting of a caregiver and patient with Alzheimer. As a result of this collaboration, a new @Home, real-life video dataset was recorded, from which a truly relevant taxonomy of activities was extracted. Following a state of the art Activity Recognition framework we further studied and assessed these IADLs in term of recognition performances with different calibration approaches

Wearable video monitoring of people with age Dementia : Video indexing at the service of helthcare

International audienceExploration of video surveillance material for healthcare becomes a reality in medical research. In this paper we propose a video monitoring system with wearable cameras for early diagnostics of Dementia. A video acquisition set-up is designed and the methods are developed for indexing the recorded video. The noisiness of audio-visual material and its particularity yield challenging problems for automatic indexing of this content

In Defense of Hybridity: Towards a Representational Theory of International Criminal Justice

In this article in the Symposium on Milosevic & Hussein on Trial, the author proposes a critical & normative representational theory of what international criminals should be tried by in a hybrid tribunal framework that surpasses complementarity & primacy, & mitigates the lack of dimension in purely international or domestic trials. A discussion of universality issues regarding sovereignty & complementarity, & the complications of ownership in international crimes supports the assertion that the hybrid nature of the theory as a representation of crimes & acknowledgement of the affected communities. Comparative analysis between complementarity & hybridity are applied to the cases of Milosevic & Hussein to support the argument that, if the goals of international criminal justice are to give the best representation possible, a hybrid of international & domestic trials must be applied to the two trials. J. Harwel

Enhanced transport of plant-produced rabies single chain antibody-RVG peptide fusion protein across an in cellulo blood-brain barrier device

The biomedical applications of antibody engineering are developing rapidly and have been expanded to plant expression platforms. In this study, we have generated a novel antibody molecule in planta for targeted delivery across the blood–brain barrier (BBB). Rabies virus (RABV) is a neurotropic virus for which there is no effective treatment after entry into the central nervous system. This study investigated the use of a RABV glycoprotein peptide sequence to assist delivery of a rabies neutralizing single-chain antibody (ScFv) across an in cellulo model of human BBB. The 29 amino acid rabies virus peptide (RVG) recognizes the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAchR) at neuromuscular junctions and the BBB. ScFv and ScFv-RVG fusion proteins were produced in Nicotiana benthamiana by transient expression. Both molecules were successfully expressed and purified, but the ScFv expression level was significantly higher than that of ScFv-RVG fusion. Both ScFv and ScFv-RVG fusion molecules had potent neutralization activity against RABVin cellulo. The ScFv-RVG fusion demonstrated increased binding to nAchR and entry into neuronal cells, compared to ScFv alone. Additionally, a human brain endothelial cell line BBB model was used to demonstrate that plant-produced ScFv-RVGP fusion could translocate across the cells. This study indicates that the plant-produced ScFv-RVGP fusion protein was able to cross the in celluloBBB and neutralize RABV

Balancement de ligne et assignation de tâches aux employés : modèle mathématique et application au domaine aéronautique

Depuis de nombreuses années, le balancement des lignes d’assemblage et la gestion des ressources humaines sont étudiés par la communauté scientifique. Les chercheurs développent de plus en plus de modèles mathématiques permettant de résoudre des problèmes de plus en plus complexes dans des domaines très variés. Cependant, le projet qui suit porte sur un domaine peu étudié du fait de ses particularités industrielles. Il est vrai que les lignes d’assemblage comme celle de finition intérieure dans l’aéronautique ne se comportent pas comme les lignes d’assemblage traditionnelles. Le faible volume de production est, entre autres, un critère démarquant ce type de ligne. Ce mémoire va présenter un algorithme permettant d’assigner des tâches à des postes, mais également, un modèle mathématique assignant ces tâches à des employés spécifiques. Ces deux assignations se font sous les contraintes principales de précédence et de compétence de la main-d'oeuvre. En effet, l’industrie aéronautique a besoin de main-d'oeuvre très qualifiée dans des spécialités précises, n’importe quel employé ne peut exécuter toutes les tâches qui permettront de mener à bien le projet. Lors de l’élaboration du modèle, un plan d’expérience a été développé afin de voir s’il était robuste et permettait de résoudre des problèmes de taille industrielle. Des facteurs variables ont donc été utilisés afin de couvrir au maximum la réalité industrielle, parmi eux se retrouve le nombre de spécialités sur un même poste de travail, les types d’antécédence et la durée élémentaire des tâches. L’exemple proposé par la suite a été élaboré grâce aux données industrielles fournies par une entreprise de la région. L’objectif à atteindre a été d’organiser au mieux les postes de travail en minimisant le nombre d’employés total du fait des coûts importants que cette main-d'oeuvre très qualifiée engendre. La résolution du modèle mathématique s’est faite de façon exacte ce qui a engendré des limitations sur la taille des problèmes pouvant être résolus dans un temps raisonnable.---------- ABSTRACT Since many years, assembly line balancing and human resources management are studied by scientists. Researchers develop, in various contexts, more and more mathematics models to solve more and more complex problems. However, the following project deals with a part less studied due to its industrial constraints. Assembly lines like interior fittings in aerospace industry are admittedly quite different than traditional ones. The low volume of production is, as example, a criterion which makes them different. This memoir will present an algorithm that assigns tasks to stations and a mathematic model that assigns tasks to a specific employee. Both assignments are under two major constraints: precedence and competency. Indeed, the aerospace industry needs to have really qualified employees in specific specialities. All the employees do not have the skills to complete all tasks that are necessary to succeed in fulfilling the project. When the model was developed, an experiment plan has been drawn up to test it and see if it can solve industrial problems. Some variables were used to cover as well as possible the industrial reality. Among them, we can find the number of competencies on a station, the kind of precedence and the task time. The proposed example has been developed thanks to industrial data given by a regional company. The objective was to organize stations in minimizing as well as possible the total number of employees. Indeed, they are very expensive because of their competencies. The mathematic model was solved in an exact method, which generated some limitations on the size of the problems that have to be solved in a moderate time

In vitro and in vivo evaluation of a single chain antibody fragment generated in planta with potent rabies neutralisation activity.

Rabies causes more than 60,000 human deaths annually in areas where the virus is endemic. Importantly, rabies is one of the few pathogens for which there is no treatment following the onset of clinical disease with the outcome of infection being death in almost 100% of cases. Whilst vaccination, and the combination of vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin treatment for post-exposure administration are available, no tools have been identified that can reduce or prevent rabies virus replication once clinical disease has initiated. The search for effective antiviral molecules to treat those that have already developed clinical disease associated with rabies virus infection is considered one of the most important goals in rabies research. The current study assesses a single chain antibody molecule (ScFv) based on a monoclonal antibody that potently neutralises rabies in vitro as a potential therapeutic candidate. The recombinant ScFv was generated in Nicotiana benthamiana by transient expression, and was chemically conjugated (ScFv/RVG) to a 29 amino acid peptide, specific for nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAchR) binding in the CNS. This conjugated molecule was able to bind nAchR in vitro and enter neuronal cells more efficiently than ScFv. The ability of the ScFv/RVG to neutralise virus in vivo was assessed using a staggered administration where the molecule was inoculated either four hours before, two days after or four days after infection. The ScFv/RVG conjugate was evaluated in direct comparison with HRIG and a potential antiviral molecule, Favipiravir (also known as T-705) to indicate whether there was greater bioavailability of the ScFv in the brains of treated mice. The study indicated that the approach taken with the ScFv/RVG conjugate may have utility in the design and implementation of novel tools targetting rabies virus infection in the brain

[Disability] justice dictated by the surfeit of love:Simone Weil in Nigeria

How is Nigeria’s failure to fulfil its obligations as a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to be appreciated or even resolved? Answers to this are sought through a seminal criticism of human rights, namely, Simone Weil’s 1942 essay Human Personality. Weil questioned the ability of human rights concepts to cause the powerful to develop the emotional dispositions of empathy for those who suffer. Weil’s insights provide a convincing explanation that the indifference of Nigerian authorities towards the Convention may be accounted for by the weakness of human rights discourse to foster human capacity for empathy and care for those who suffer. Weil’s criticisms will serve as a point of departure for a particular way to circumvent this inadequacy of human rights discourse to achieve disability justice in Nigeria through other means. I argue that Weil, through her concept of attention, grappled with and offers a consciousness of suffering and vulnerability that is not only uncommon to existing juridical human rights approaches, but is achievable through the active participation in the very forms of suffering and vulnerability in which amelioration is sought. To provide empirical content to this argument, I turn to a short-lived initiative of the Nigerian disability movement, which if ethico-politically refined and widely applied, can supply an action-theoretical grounding for and be combined with Weil’s work to elevate agitations for disability justice above human rights to the realm of human obligations

JOINT KINEMATIC ASYMMETRY BASED ON SPATIOTEMPORAL PATTERN DEVIATION DURING AN INCREMENTAL TEST IN HIGH LEVEL CYCLING

The aim of this study was to use two asymmetry indexes from a kinematical point of view in professional cyclists during an incremental test to exhaustion. Twelve professional cyclists were evaluated during the French Cycling Federation’s protocol. Based on motion capture, asymmetry analysis was addressed by means of cross-correlation technique and a normalized symmetry index (NSI). Results pointed out that NSI could vary up to 18% throughout the pedaling cycle, with different behavior between upward and downward pedaling phases. Both methods exhibited low values of asymmetry especially for flexion/extension, but higher asymmetry values for other DOF. This study shows the complementarity of both NSI and cross-correlation methods. It enables to continuously evaluate changes during the crank cycle associated to skeletal movement