Sense of place in everyday spaces:: lessons for urban design

Many philosophers and thinkers have lamented the loss of place in terms of the loss of contact of the body with the environment in post-industrialized societies. With the diminishing cache of places it becomes even more important to study spaces in the city that posses this character and genius loci. This paper investigates the qualities of a seemingly ordinary everyday space that imbue it with character and elevate it to become a place. The paper explores the significance of this space in everyday life and how it is transformed from an ordinary space of consumption to a meaningful place for meeting, interaction and human-human contacts, and a place for haptic experiences and bodyobject contacts in the community. An extensive study of a neighborhood commercial street in Cambridge, Massachusetts revealed a handful of spaces that were extensively used for social interactions. Observations and interviews suggested that one of these spaces supported the majority of social interactions and was a concrete human space with a unique sense of place. The patterns of interactions at this location were documented and analyzed using sketches, drawings, notes, interviews, photographs and videos and by actively participating in the phenomena of this space. Observations show that this location on the street has a distinct hereness, a sense of being in it and enclosure, a sense of ease and safety that is at the core of the experience of place. By analyzing the various phenomena of this place this study suggests essential qualities for the design of public spaces to become places that will retain a sense of nearness, a connection between people and places, and will strengthen our sense of tactile reality

PERFORMANCE OF PAN-TILT TRACKER BASED ON THE PIN-HOLE LENS MODEL

In the modern day, recognition and tracking of face or the iris is potentially one of the most powerful ways of differentiating between an authentic person and an imposter. Our method uses stereo vision to track the 3-Dimensional coordinates of a target equivalent to a person’s eyes and using a pan-tilt unit we target these areas for additional processing such as iris or facial imaging. One of the most important parts involved in tracking is the way the pan-tilt unit is calibrated. There have been techniques in the past where PTZ (Pan-tilt-zoom) digital camera has been used and calibrated using self calibration techniques involving a checker board calibration grid but the tracking error was found to be large in these techniques. We introduce a more accurate form of calibration of the pantilt unit using photogrammetric calibration technique and view the pan-tilt unit as an emulation of a Pinhole Lens Model to detect and track the target. The system is demonstrated on ideal targets

Acute kidney injury as the presenting feature of sarcoidosis

Acute kidney injury is rarely the presenting feature of sarcoidosis. We report the case of a patient whose diagnosis was brought to light by the investigation of impaired kidney function. Concurrent hypercalcaemia was noted and prompted further investigation, which led to the diagnosis of sarcoidosis. This is a rare phenomenon and is an important consideration in the patient with acute kidney injury and hypercalcaemia, without an apparent explanation. Rapid improvement in both kidney function and hypercalcaemia occurred in response to treatment

Lively Streets: Exploring the relationship between built environment and social behavior

Streets constitute a significant part of open public space and are the most important symbols of the public realm. Streets that cater to the functional, social, and leisure needs of people have been positively associated with economic growth, physical health of people, and a sense of community. Increasingly, scholars suggest thinking of the street as a social space rather than just a channel for movement. Despite such suggestions, few studies have addressed the relationships between social behavior and the environmental quality of the street. Moreover, the studies that have, tend to separate the study of physical features from land uses, and hence do not deal with the interrelationships between behavioral patterns and the physical features of the street, and its sociability. This dissertation was an empirical examination of behavioral responses, perceptions, and attitudes of people to the physical characteristics, use, and management of the neighborhood commercial street in two cities and one town in the Boston metropolitan area. It used methods based in environment-behavior sciences involving extensive observations of these streets over eight months, and interviews with people using these streets to understand their behaviors and perceptions. The biggest competitive advantage of neighborhood commercial streets is their ability to support social interaction. The findings reveal that people were equally concerned with the social and physical dimensions of the street. The presence of community places and the street's landuse and physical character determined the use of the street. People preferred settings that had stores that were community-gathering places, which held special collective meanings for the people of the neighborhood and were thus destinations to meet friends and to see other people and activities; that had a variety of stores on the block, particularly those that served daily shopping needs; that had unique independently operated stores with friendly service, a distinctive character and ambience, and personalized shop-windows and entrances; that were pedestrian-friendly with ample sidewalk space with seating and other street furniture, and shade and shelter; and that had buildings with permeable and articulated street facades providing sheltered small-scale spaces

MalDet-Malware Detection Using Deep Learning and LSTM based Approach to Classify Malware

Computer security requires malware detection. Recent research manually uncovers hazardous features using machine learning-based techniques. MalDet, a cutting-edge malware detection method, is recommended in this paper. MalDet classifies malware using a stacking ensemble and learns from grayscale images and opcode sequences using CNN and LSTM networks. According to the evaluation, MalDet's malware detection validation accuracy is 99.89%. MalDet outperforms other previous research with 99.36% detection accuracy and a significant detection speedup on the Microsoft malware dataset. We classified nine malware families for MalDet

Estudio por GC-MS del aceite de la semilla de Nigella sativa

The GC-MS study of N. sativa (seeds) fatty oil revealed the presence of 26 compounds which were identified as methyl hept-6-enoate,1-phenylhepta-2,4-dione, pentadecane, hexadec-1-ene, 1-phenyldecan-2-one, octadec-1-ene, octadecane, methyl pentadecanoate, bis(3-chlorophenyl) ketone, diethyl phthalate, ethyl octadec-7-enoate, methyl octadecanoate, tricos-9-ene, octadeca-9,12-dienoic acid, hexadecanoic acid, methyl hexadecanoate, methyl octadec-15-enoate, henicosan-10-one, 2-methyl octadecanoic acid, docos-1-ene, ethyl octadecanoate, methyl octadecanoate, pentacos-5-ene,12-methyltricosane, dibutyl phthalate and 2-methyltetracosane.El estudio por GC-MS del aceite de la semilla de Nigella sativa reveló la presencia de 26 compuestos los cuales fueron identificados como: hept-6-enoato de metilo, 1-fenilhepta-2,4-diona, pentadecano, hexadec-1-eno, 1-fenildecan-2-ona, octadec-1-eno, octadecano, pentadecanoato de metilo, bis(3-clorofenil) cetona, ftalato de dietilo, octadec-7-enoato de etilo, octadecanoato de metilo, tricos-9-eno, ácido octadeca-9,12-dienoico, ácido hexadecanoico, hexadecanoato de metilo, octadec-15-enoato de metilo, henicosan-10-ona, ácido 2-metil octadecanoico, docos-1-eno, octadecanoato de etilo, octadecanoato de metilo, pentacos-5-eno, 12-metiltricosano, ftalato de dibutilo y 2-metiltetracosano

Validation of endogenous reference genes for qRT-PCR analysis of human visceral adipose samples

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Given the epidemic proportions of obesity worldwide and the concurrent prevalence of metabolic syndrome, there is an urgent need for better understanding the underlying mechanisms of metabolic syndrome, in particular, the gene expression differences which may participate in obesity, insulin resistance and the associated series of chronic liver conditions. Real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is the standard method for studying changes in relative gene expression in different tissues and experimental conditions. However, variations in amount of starting material, enzymatic efficiency and presence of inhibitors can lead to quantification errors. Hence the need for accurate data normalization is vital. Among several known strategies for data normalization, the use of reference genes as an internal control is the most common approach. Recent studies have shown that both obesity and presence of insulin resistance influence an expression of commonly used reference genes in omental fat. In this study we validated candidate reference genes suitable for qRT-PCR profiling experiments using visceral adipose samples from obese and lean individuals.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cross-validation of expression stability of eight selected reference genes using three popular algorithms, <it>GeNorm</it>, <it>NormFinder </it>and <it>BestKeeper </it>found <it>ACTB </it>and <it>RPII </it>as most stable reference genes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We recommend <it>ACTB </it>and <it>RPII </it>as stable reference genes most suitable for gene expression studies of human visceral adipose tissue. The use of these genes as a reference pair may further enhance the robustness of qRT-PCR in this model system.</p