Of Skin and Men

This analysis discusses the sexual objectification of the Tunisian woman in the drama Of Skin and Men by director Mehdi Ben Attia. The film deals with the position of women in Tunisian society and offers an insight into the everyday life of the protagonist. In recent years, there have already been some academic discussions on feminist theories and publications on gender-based violence in the MENA region. For this reason, the portrayal of women as the weaker sex should be considered from a media studies perspective. In this work it is argued that the protagonist is exposed to the sexual objectification, power and violence of the Tunisian man.</span

Global increases in both common and rare copy number load associated with autism.

Children with autism have an elevated frequency of large, rare copy number variants (CNVs). However, the global load of deletions or duplications, per se, and their size, location and relationship to clinical manifestations of autism have not been documented. We examined CNV data from 516 individuals with autism or typical development from the population-based Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment (CHARGE) study. We interrogated 120 regions flanked by segmental duplications (genomic hotspots) for events &gt;50 kbp and the entire genomic backbone for variants &gt;300 kbp using a custom targeted DNA microarray. This analysis was complemented by a separate study of five highly dynamic hotspots associated with autism or developmental delay syndromes, using a finely tiled array platform (&gt;1 kbp) in 142 children matched for gender and ethnicity. In both studies, a significant increase in the number of base pairs of duplication, but not deletion, was associated with autism. Significantly elevated levels of CNV load remained after the removal of rare and likely pathogenic events. Further, the entire CNV load detected with the finely tiled array was contributed by common variants. The impact of this variation was assessed by examining the correlation of clinical outcomes with CNV load. The level of personal and social skills, measured by Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, negatively correlated (Spearman's r = -0.13, P = 0.034) with the duplication CNV load for the affected children; the strongest association was found for communication (P = 0.048) and socialization (P = 0.022) scores. We propose that CNV load, predominantly increased genomic base pairs of duplication, predisposes to autism

Early detection of heterotopic ossification using near‐infrared optical imaging reveals dynamic turnover and progression of mineralization following Achilles tenotomy and burn injury

Heterotopic ossification (HO) is the abnormal formation of bone in soft tissue. Current diagnostics have low sensitivity or specificity to incremental progression of mineralization, especially at early time points. Without accurate and reliable early diagnosis and intervention, HO progression often results in incapacitating conditions of limited range of motion, nerve entrapment, and pain. We hypothesized that non‐invasive near‐infrared (NIR) optical imaging can detect HO at early time points and monitor heterotopic bone turnover longitudinally. C57BL6 mice received an Achilles tenotomy on their left hind limb in combination with a dorsal burn or sham procedure. A calcium‐chelating tetracycline derivative (IRDye 680RD BoneTag) was injected bi‐weekly and imaged via NIR to measure accumulative fluorescence for 11 wk and compared to in vivo microCT images. Percent retention of fluorescence was calculated longitudinally to assess temporal bone resorption. NIR detected HO as early as five days and revealed a temporal response in HO formation and turnover. MicroCT could not detect HO until 5 wk. Confocal microscopy confirmed fluorophore localization to areas of HO. These findings demonstrate the ability of a near‐infrared optical imaging strategy to accurately and reliably detect and monitor HO in a murine model. © 2014 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 32:1416–1423, 2014.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108601/1/jor22697.pd

Dicke-state preparation through global transverse control of Ising-coupled qubits

We consider the problem of engineering the two-excitation Dicke state $|D^{3}_{2}\rangle$ in a three-qubit system with all-to-all Ising-type qubit-qubit interaction, which is also subject to global transverse (Zeeman-type) control fields. The theoretical underpinning for our envisioned state-preparation scheme, in which $|000\rangle$ is adopted as the initial state of the system, is provided by a Lie-algebraic result that guarantees state-to-state controllability of this system for an arbitrary choice of initial- and final states that are invariant with respect to permutations of qubits. This scheme is envisaged in the form of a pulse sequence that involves three instantaneous control pulses, which are equivalent to global qubit rotations, and two Ising-interaction pulses of finite durations between consecutive control pulses. The design of this pulse sequence -- whose total duration is $T\approx 0.95\:\hbar/J$, where $J$ is the Ising-coupling strength -- leans heavily on the concept of the symmetric sector, a four-dimensional, permutationally-invariant subspace of the three-qubit Hilbert space. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed state-preparation scheme by carrying out a detailed numerical analysis of its robustness to systematic errors, i.e. deviations from the optimal values of the eight parameters that characterize the underlying pulse sequence. Finally, we discuss how our proposed scheme can be generalized for engineering Dicke states in systems with $N \ge 4$ qubits. For the sake of illustration, we describe the preparation of the two-excitation Dicke state $|D^{4}_{2}\rangle$ in a four-qubit system.Comment: extended version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The Effectiveness of the Role of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) to Manage Social Cohesion in the Interest of the Public’s Health Across Communities in the UK

Community safety features prominently in modern societies, particularly in the West. In the United Kingdom (UK), much emphasis is placed on the concept of “community”. Beginning in the late 1990’s, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) were tasked with the job of reducing crime, increasing quality of life and reaching out to disengaged communities. The foremost reason for the creation of CDRPs is to encourage community discourse at the local level and to enable the community to be a part of the decision making process in matters that would affect them. However, there is very little evidence that communities are engaged; this conclusion is marred by the fact that there has been no comprehensive assessment of this community dialog and decision-making process within CDRPs. CDRPs continue to function throughout the UK despite the aforementioned shortcomings. Inequality in public health and resources available to early immigrants, in particular Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups in the UK were as a result of racism. This manifested itself through institutional racism. Unfortunately, this inequality led to the breakdown of entire communities. The resolve of BMEs to riot over the past five decades has been an attempt to get recognition of the social injustice that they have been subject to. CDRPS would also come to include Safer Communities Teams (SCTs) created specifically to manage hate crime. This included addressing matters of racism in communities, as a result of ongoing institutional prejudice and injustice. This paper will outline the path to social cohesion within a multicultural society as dictated under the leadership of the British New Labour government. Social cohesion has been bolstered through CDRPs using the policy framework of New Labour. This document will address social cohesiveness as it pertains to the health of a nation. CDRPs have been tasked with the responsibility to ensure safe and healthy communities. There will also be an account of the first-hand experience of the function and nature of a CDRP. This will be from an insider’s point of view; a reflection based on experience against the most recent Framework that the CDRPs are currently working towards.Master of Public Healt

Urbanization and rainfall-runoff relationships in the Milwaukee River Basin

To understand the changing rainfall-runoff relationship, the study examined climate and streamflow data in the Milwaukee River Basin in southeastern Wisconsin, of which four catchments with different degrees of urbanization were selected for analysis. This study analyzed temperature, precipitation, and streamflow data with a range of statistical methods, including the Mann-Kendall test, double-mass technique, and quantile regression. Runoff ratios and extreme flow indices were higher in more urbanized catchments. Catchments with long-term data (\u3e40 years) showed significantly increasing runoff ratios and slopes in double mass curves. Overall, there are signs of changes in the rainfall-runoff relationship, but how much they can be attributed to land use changes is uncertain

Accurate semantic segmentation of RGB-D images for indoor navigation

We introduce an approach of semantic segmentation to detect various objects for the mobile robot system “ROSWITHA” (RObot System WITH Autonomy). Developing a semantic segmentation method is a challenging research field in machine learning and computer vision. The semantic segmentation approach is robust compared with the other traditional state-of- the-art methods for understanding the surroundings. Semantic segmentation is a method that presents the most information about the object, such as classification and localization of the object on the image level and the pixel level, thus precisely depicting the shape and position of the object in space. In this work, we experimented with verifying the effectiveness of semantic segmentation when used as an aid to improving the performance of robust indoor navigation tasks. To make the output map of semantic segmentation meaningful, and enhance the model accuracy, points cloud data were extracted from the depth camera, which fuses the data origi- nated from RGB and depth stream to improve the speed and accuracy compared with different machine learning algorithms. We compared our modified approach with the state-of-the-art methods and compared the results when trained with the available dataset NYUv2. Moreover, the model was then trained with the customized indoor dataset 1 (three classes) and dataset 2 (seven classes) to achieve a robust classification of the objects in the dynamic environment of Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences laboratories. The model attains a global accuracy of 98.2%, with a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 90.9% for dataset 1. For dataset 2, the model achieves a global accuracy of 95.6%, with an mIoU of 72%. Furthermore, the evaluations were performed in our indoor scenario.14 página

A novel HRAS c.466C>T p.(Phe156Leu) variant in two patients with attenuated features of Costello syndrome

Costello syndrome (CS) is caused by heterozygous HRAS germline mutations. Most patients share the HRAS variant p.Gly12Ser that is associated with a typical, homogeneous phenotype. Rarer pathogenic HRAS variants (e.g., p.Thr56Ile) were identified in individuals with attenuated CS phenotypes. The obvious phenotypical variability reflects different dysfunctional consequences of distinct HRAS variants. We report on two boys with the novel de novo HRAS variant c.466 C > T p.(Phe156Leu). Both had severe feeding difficulties, airway obstruction and developmental delay, which are typical findings in CS. They showed subtle facial and dermatologic features consistent with attenuated CS. They significantly differed in their musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and endocrinologic manifestations underscoring the clinical variability of individuals with identical, in particular rarer pathogenic HRAS variants. Functional studies revealed enhanced effector-binding, increased downstream signaling activation and impaired growth factor-induced signaling dynamics in cells expressing HRASPhe156Leu. Our data further illustrate the molecular and phenotypic variability of CS