The Físchlár digital video recording, analysis, and browsing system

In digital video indexing research area an important technique is called shot boundary detection which automatically segments long video material into camera shots using content-based analysis of video. We have been working on developing various shot boundary detection and representative frame selection techniques to automatically index encoded video stream and provide the end users with video browsing/navigation feature. In this paper we describe a demonstrator digital video system that allows the user to record a TV broadcast programme to MPEG-1 file format and to easily browse and playback the file content online. The system incorporates the shot boundary detection and representative frame selection techniques we have developed and has become a full-featured digital video system that not only demonstrates any further techniques we will develop, but also obtains users’ video browsing behaviour. At the moment the system has a real-user base of about a hundred people and we are closely monitoring how they use the video browsing/navigation feature which the system provides

The interaction between exercise induced muscle damage and fatigue on neural regulation and exercise performance during submaximal and maximal running

Aim: To study the effects of muscle damage and fatigue on neuromuscular preactivation and performance during submaximal and maximal running. Setting: University of Cape Town, Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Methods: 12 male distance runners (19 - 39 years of age) with a minimum weekly training distance of 40 kilometers per week were randomly assigned to either control (n = 6) or experimental (n = 6) groups. Subjects’ visited the laboratory over an 11 day period during which testing included a submaximal and maximal run (5 km time trial) on the first and last day of testing. Neuromuscular preactivation, rating of perceived exertion, heart rate and performance times were recorded during the performance trials. The intervention between performance trials included two 40 minute bouts on a treadmill at 70 % peak treadmill running speed at –10 º elevation (experimental) or horizontal (control). Results: Running performance in the 5 km time trial (5K) improved in the experimental group alone by an average of 40 seconds over 5 km (P < 0.04) in the presence of muscle damage and without altered neuromuscular preactivation. There was no evidence any interaction between altered neuromuscular activity with regard to fatigue and muscle damage during submaximal and maximal running. Evidence of muscle damage in the experimental group was supported by a significant group versus time interaction effect in subjective pain score for daily living and increased plasma creatinine kinase levels in the experimental group (P<0.03). A significant decrease in rating of perceived exertion (RPE) was observed in both groups during both the submaximal (P<0.04) and 5 km time trial (P<0.03) post intervention. There was an interaction effect for group versus pre-post 5K (P<0.06), with the post 5K RPE in the experimental group showing an average decreased RPE score of 2.6 for each kilometer and the control group an average decrease in RPE score of only 0.03. Conclusion: The research design of this study was appropriate to study the interaction between fatigue and muscle damage during submaximal and maximal running. This study suggests that there is no neuromuscular compensation after muscle damage and that EMG is regulated similarly for both fatigue and muscle damage during submaximal and maximal running. Improvement in running performance and decreased rating of perceived exertion after muscle damage is due to some unknown variable

Evaluation of automatic shot boundary detection on a large video test suite

The challenge facing the indexing of digital video information in order to support browsing and retrieval by users, is to design systems that can accurately and automatically process large amounts of heterogeneous video. The segmentation of video material into shots and scenes is the basic operation in the analysis of video content. This paper presents a detailed evaluation of a histogram-based shot cut detector based on eight hours of TV broadcast video. Our observations are that the selection of similarity thresholds for determining shot boundaries in such broadcast video is difficult and necessitates the development of systems that employ adaptive thresholding in order to address the huge variation of characteristics prevalent in TV broadcast video

How to Unravel and Solve Soil Fertility Problems

Land Economics/Use,

Nutritional Disorders of Grain Sorghum

Crop Production/Industries,

Loyalty Programme Roulette: The Loyal, The Committed, And The Polygamous

Loyalty programmes have two main aims, firstly to gather consumer data and secondly to create or maintain loyal behaviour amongst their customers. The aim of this study was to investigate the results of a loyalty programme and evaluate its effectiveness in encouraging loyal behaviour amongst members. In order to achieve this objective, a comparison was made between the loyal behaviour of members and non-members of a loyalty programme at a single clothing retailer by means of a structured questionnaire. Respondents were questioned about their perceived commitment to the retailer, their current purchase behaviour and their anticipated future behaviour with regards to long-term loyalty towards the retailer. In keeping with traditional loyalty theory, respondents were also asked to report on their willingness to recommend the retailer to their peers. The study showed that there is very little empirical evidence to support increased loyal behaviour as a direct result of loyalty programme membership. Evidence was presented however, that strongly supports a link between customers’ commitment to the retailer and their loyal behaviour regardless of their membership status

Diamond–Blackfan anemia RPL35A: a case report

Background Diamond–Blackfan anemia is a rare congenital red blood cell aplasia characterized by failed erythropoiesis, congenital abnormalities in up to 50% of patients, growth retardation in up to 30% of patients, and a predisposition to malignancy. Diamond–Blackfan anemia is both clinically and genetically a heterogenous condition ranging from subtle asymptomatic erythroid abnormalities to non-immune hydrops fetalis. Current treatment options include corticosteroid therapy, chronic red blood cell transfusions, and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with gene therapy receiving recent attention. We report the first documented case of Diamond–Blackfan anemia in a Caucasian girl secondary to a sporadic heterozygous whole gene deletion in RPL35A in South Africa. Limited resources, non-availability of tests, unfamiliarity that comes with rare diseases, an expanded differential diagnosis, and an associated neutropenia led to a delay in the diagnosis of Diamond–Blackfan anemia. This case reminds clinicians of Diamond–Blackfan anemia as a cause of aplastic anemia and highlights the difficulty and obstacles in diagnosing Diamond–Blackfan anemia in resource-limited countries. Case presentation We report a case of a 6-week-old Caucasian girl presenting with urosepsis and heart failure secondary to a severe anemia and neutropenia. Limited experience and resources resulted in a delay in diagnosis. Genetic studies later confirmed a heterozygous whole gene deletion of RPL35A. Initial treatment was directed toward correcting the anemia with red blood cell transfusion every 3 to 5 weeks. Conclusion Diamond–Blackfan anemia is a rare disease that carries significant morbidity and mortality if not diagnosed early and managed appropriately. Limited health resources, patient registries, and specialists as seen in developing countries result in a paucity of knowledge about Diamond–Blackfan anemia in Africa. This case reminds clinicians about Diamond–Blackfan anemia as a cause for anemia in infants, the limitations in making the diagnosis in under-resourced health care systems, and the need for standardized treatment protocols applicable to resource-limited countries

Improvisations of empire : Thomas Pringle in Scotland, the Cape Colony and London, 1789-1834.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.This dissertation offers an extended examination of the writing of the 1820 Scottish settler Thomas Pringle. Though the primary focus of analysis is Pringle's poetry, the dissertation also engages extensively with Pringle's prose writing, particularly the Narrative ofa Residence in South Africa (1834), as well as the archival records of his personal and official correspondence. As the title suggests, the dissertation works through three distinct periods of Pringle's life, in each of which it locates different but related colonial postures or dispositions. In this schema, Pringle's Scottish writing is understood as obeisant to British cultural and linguistic norms, which it reproduces in a fashion that may be considered colonial in its deference to metropolitan standards. The Scottish context also provides Pringle with examples of people considered marginal to the developing modernity of the Scottish state (such as gypsies), who provide, I argue, baseline models for how Pringle will come to represent colonised indigenous peoples. In addition, the general principles of Scottish Enlightenment thought, in particular the four stages theory of historical development, supplied Pringle with a model within which to conceptualise the colonial state and its future evolution. Chapters two and three focus on Pringle's colonial career in the Cape Colony. Here I argue that Pringle's poetry of this period provides evidence of two distinct phases. In the first and most difficult period of settlement Pringle wrote poetry of troubled lyric interiority which reflected an incommensurable gap between colonial experience and the expressive expectations and conventions which he brought to it. Following his fallout with Governor Somerset and a de facto alliance with the mission humanitarians, Pringle's poetry moves away from a Romantic preoccupation with the self and begins to engage larger public issues, such as the treatment of indigenous people. In this mode, Pringle very often assumes an indigenous persona and I examine the extent to which such a gesture might be considered both appropriative and incipiently transcultural. As indicated earlier, I also examine the generic and representational models which might have informed Pringle's treatment of this subject. The chapters also consider Pringle's colonial politics, and emphasise that his reputation as a 'radical' is a misleading one; there are, furthermore, no easy conjunctures to be established between Pringle's allegedly radical politics and a radicalism of representation in his poetry (a commonplace critical assumption). In the final chapter I examine the complexities of Pringle's London years, which require that we bring into focus both his Scottish and his South African experience and their mediation by this new context. Here the broad focus of my argument is that we must take account not only of Pringle's standing as an abolitionist-humanitarian and Secretary to the high profile Anti-Slavery Society, but also his position as a respectable man of letters, particularly his role as editor of the influential but genteel 'annual', Friendship's Offering, from 1829-1835. These dual public roles reciprocated one another, I argue, in that Pringle's reputation as a poet of 'elegance' and 'taste' also lent credence to his reputation an ethically exemplary humanitarian. This reciprocation of roles is strongly evident in Pringle's best known poems of this period, «The Bechuana Boy" and «The Emigrant's Cabin", which rewrite colonial experience in a way that conforms to the expectations of his metropolitan readers. During his residence in London, Pringle also produced a number of poems in the subgenre of what could be described as evangelical redemptivism. These hortatory and proselytising pieces were mainly published in missionary magazines, and though South African in subject matter they could equally be set in any area of empire where mission work was being done. This subgenre I analyse as an offshoot of the extreme evangelical and abolitionist enthusiasms of the 1830s, with their belief in their divinely mandated mission to fully Christianise the British empire and emancipate all its subjects. In conclusion, this study argues for an understanding of Pringle's work as being intersected by differences in imperial location and status, as well as by a significant degree of instability and contradiction in its representation of the colonial project. Far from being cohered around a teleological liberal vision of an emancipated future, Pringle's work, both prose and poetry, repeatedly reveals a contradiction and contrariety that suggests fundamental irresolution rather than firm conviction

The Effect of Dietary Supplementation with Spent Cider Yeast on the Swine Distal Gut Microbiome

peer-reviewedBackground: There is an increasing need for alternatives to antibiotics for promoting animal health, given the increasing problems associated with antibiotic resistance. In this regard, we evaluated spent cider yeast as a potential probiotic for modifying the gut microbiota in weanling pigs using pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene libraries. Methodology and Principal Findings: Piglets aged 24–26 days were assigned to one of two study groups; control (n = 12) and treatment (n = 12). The control animals were fed with a basal diet and the treatment animals were fed with basal diet in combination with cider yeast supplement (500 ml cider yeast containing ,7.6 log CFU/ml) for 21 days. Faecal samples were collected for 16s rRNA gene compositional analysis. 16S rRNA compositional sequencing analysis of the faecal samples collected from day 0 and day 21 revealed marked differences in microbial diversity at both the phylum and genus levels between the control and treatment groups. This analysis confirmed that levels of Salmonella and Escherichia were significantly decreased in the treatment group, compared with the control (P,0.001). This data suggest a positive influence of dietary supplementation with live cider yeast on the microbial diversity of the pig distal gut. Conclusions/Significance: The effect of dietary cider yeast on porcine gut microbial communities was characterized for the first time using 16S rRNA gene compositional sequencing. Dietary cider yeast can potentially alter the gut microbiota, however such changes depend on their endogenous microbiota that causes a divergence in relative response to that given diet.This work was funded by Enterprise Ireland, under the Commercialisation Fund (Contract No: CFTD/05/117), the Irish Government under the National Development Plan, 2000–2006, the European Research and Development Fund and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).European Research and Development Fun