A Noval Approach for Face Spoof Detection using Color-Texture, Distortion and Quality Parameters

Face spoof detection technique is used in many applications to check whether the given face is spoofed or not. It helps to detect the fake faces from genuine ones. An efficient proposed method for face spoofing detection is based on color-texture, image distortion and image quality parameters. The faces are detected from a compressed format image. The color-texture information from the luminance and chrominance channels extracted using Local Binary Pattern descriptor. The image distortion and image quality parameters are extracted from the same color space. The aim of this method is to bring together the advantages of these methods inorder to improve the accuracy of face spoofing detection. Multiclass SVM classifier is used to train each features of data and detect different face spoof attack. This paper describe a novel and appealing approach for detecting the fake faces from genuine ones using a color-texture combine with image distortion and image quality parameters. More importantly, the proposed method provides more accuracy, other than the method that described in the literature. It helps to separate the original face and fake face clearly and define the type of attack

A Study on Prescribing Pattern of Antihypertensive in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

Background: Chronic kidney disease causes progressive loss of function which gradually occur overtime leading to decrease in GFR levels leading to dysfunction of renal system. Hypertension is found to be intermingled cause and overlapping complication in CKD. It is important to intervene the progression by controlling the blood pressure to prevent kidney failure by administration of anti-hypertensive. Objectives: To study current trends in anti-hypertensive prescription pattern in CKD patient and to evaluate the concurrent patterns are in adherence according to the guidelines mentioned.  Methods: Prospective observational study was undertaken in patients who were satisfying the inclusion criteria and was enrolled into the study conducted for a 6months period in a tertiary care hospital in Bangalore. Results: 150 CKD patients were examined out of which 72% prevalence seen in males compared to females 28%. Dual drug therapy was most preferred combination seen in 48% of the prescriptions. CCB was the most preferred class of drug and least preferred class of drug was ACE. More than 85% deviation from JNC-8 was seen. 20% of mono-therapy was found in adherence to JNC-8. Conclusion: A 15% adherence to JNC-8 guidelines was observed in the treatment indicating need for clinical pharmacist who play vital role in management of CKD by adherence to JNC-8 to ensure safety, efficacy and rationality. Keywords: Chronic kidney disease, Hypertension, Prescription pattern, JNC-8 guidelines, Compliance, Anti-Hypertensive. &nbsp

Corrosion inhibition capacity of two heterocyclic oximes on copper in nitric acid: electrochemical, quantum chemical and surface morphological investigations

Two heterocyclic oximes (E)-N-hydroxy-1-(pyridin-2-yl)methanimine (Hp2ylm) and (E)-N-hydroxy-1-(pyridin-3-yl)methanimine (Hp3ylm) were synthesized from pyridine-2-carbaldehyde and pyridine-3-carbaldehyde, respectively. These oximes were characterized by various spectroscopic tools like UV, IR, MASS and NMR. The inhibition capacity of these oximes against copper corrosion in 0.1 M HNO3 was determined by polarization and impedance spectroscopic studies (EIS). At all concentrations, Hp3ylm exhibited higher inhibition efficiency than Hp2ylm. Attempt was made to illustrate the mechanism of corrosion inhibition by these oximes with the help of adsorption isotherm, scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and quantum chemical studies

The effect of clouds and precipitation on the aerosol concentrations and composition in a boreal forest environment

Atmospheric aerosol particle concentrations are strongly affected by various wet processes, including below and in-cloud wet scavenging and in-cloud aqueous-phase oxidation. We studied how wet scavenging and cloud processes affect particle concentrations and composition during transport to a rural boreal forest site in northern Europe. For this investigation, we employed air mass history analysis and observational data. Long-term particle number size distribution (similar to 15 years) and composition measurements (similar to 8 years) were combined with air mass trajectories with relevant variables from reanalysis data. Some such variables were rainfall rate, relative humidity, and mixing layer height. Additional observational datasets, such as temperature and trace gases, helped further evaluate wet processes along trajectories with mixed effects models. All chemical species investigated (sulfate, black carbon, and organics) exponentially decreased in particle mass concentration as a function of accumulated precipitation along the air mass route. In sulfate (SO4) aerosols, clear seasonal differences in wet removal emerged, whereas organics (Org) and equivalent black carbon (eBC) exhibited only minor differences. The removal efficiency varied slightly among the different reanalysis datasets (ERA-Interim and Global Data Assimilation System; GDAS) used for the trajectory calculations due to the difference in the average occurrence of precipitation events along the air mass trajectories between the reanalysis datasets. Aqueous-phase processes were investigated by using a proxy for air masses travelling inside clouds. We compared air masses with no experience of approximated in-cloud conditions or precipitation during the past 24 h to air masses recently inside non-precipitating clouds before they entered SMEAR II (Station for Measuring Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations). Significant increases in SO4 mass concentration were observed for the latter air masses (recently experienced non-precipitating clouds). Our mixed effects model considered other contributing factors affecting particle mass concentrations in SMEAR II: examples were trace gases, local meteorology, and diurnal variation. This model also indicated in-cloud SO4 production. Despite the reanalysis dataset used in the trajectory calculations, aqueous-phase SO4 formation was observed. Particle number size distribution measurements revealed that most of the in-cloud SO4 formed can be attributed to particle sizes larger than 200 nm (electrical mobility diameter). Aqueous-phase secondary organic aerosol (aqSOA) formation was non-significant.Peer reviewe

Differential ATAC-seq and ChIP-seq peak detection using ROTS

Changes in cellular chromatin states fine-tune transcriptional output and ultimately lead to phenotypic changes. Here we propose a novel application of our reproducibility-optimized test statistics (ROTS) to detect differential chromatin states (ATAC-seq) or differential chromatin modification states (ChIP-seq) between conditions. We compare the performance of ROTS to existing and widely used methods for ATAC-seq and ChIP-seq data using both synthetic and real datasets. Our results show that ROTS outperformed other commonly used methods when analyzing ATAC-seq data. ROTS also displayed the most accurate detection of small differences when modeling with synthetic data. We observed that two-step methods that require the use of a separate peak caller often more accurately called enrichment borders, whereas one-step methods without a separate peak calling step were more versatile in calling sub-peaks. The top ranked differential regions detected by the methods had marked correlation with transcriptional differences of the closest genes. Overall, our study provides evidence that ROTS is a useful addition to the available differential peak detection methods to study chromatin and performs especially well when applied to study differential chromatin states in ATAC-seq data. </p

Pharmacological Insights into Halophyte Bioactive Extract Action on Anti-Inflammatory, Pain Relief and Antibiotics-Type Mechanisms

The pharmacological activities in bioactive plant extracts play an increasing role in sustainable resources for valorization and biomedical applications. Bioactive phytochemicals, including natural compounds, secondary metabolites and their derivatives, have attracted significant attention for use in both medicinal products and cosmetic products. Our review highlights the pharmacological mode-of-action and current biomedical applications of key bioactive compounds applied as anti-inflammatory, bactericidal with antibiotics effects, and pain relief purposes in controlled clinical studies or preclinical studies. In this systematic review, the availability of bioactive compounds from several salt-tolerant plant species, mainly focusing on the three promising species Aster tripolium, Crithmum maritimum and Salicornia europaea, are summarized and discussed. All three of them have been widely used in natural folk medicines and are now in the focus for future nutraceutical and pharmacological applications

Fuzzy species limits in Mediterranean gorgonians (Cnidaria, Octocorallia): inferences on speciation processes

The study of the interplay between speciation and hybridization is of primary importance in evolutionary biology. Octocorals are ecologically important species whose shallow phylogenetic relationships often remain to be studied. In the Mediterranean Sea, three congeneric octocorals can be observed in sympatry: Eunicella verrucosa, Eunicella cavolini and Eunicella singularis. They display morphological differences and E.singularis hosts photosynthetic Symbiodinium, contrary to the two other species. Two nuclear sequence markers were used to study speciation and gene flow between these species, through network analysis and Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC). Shared sequences indicated the possibility of hybridization or incomplete lineage sorting. According to ABC, a scenario of gene flow through secondary contact was the best model to explain these results. At the intraspecific level, neither geographical nor ecological isolation corresponded to distinct genetic lineages in E.cavolini. These results are discussed in the light of the potential role of ecology and genetic incompatibilities in the persistence of species limits.French National Research Agency (ANR) program Adacni (ANR) [ANR-12-ADAP-0016]CNRSHubert Curien 'Tassili' program [12MDU853]CCMAR Strategic Plan from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia-FCT [PEst-C/MAR/LA0015/2011,FEDERinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Effect of Pungent and Tingling Compounds from Piper nigrum L. on Background K+ Currents

Black peppercorns (Piper nigrum L.) elicit a pungent and tingling oral impression. Their pungency is partially explained by the agonist activity of some of their active principles, especially piperine, on TRP channels. However, we recently showed that piperine, as well as other pungent compounds, also possess a marked effect on two-pore domain (KCNK, K2P) K+ channels. Members of this family play a key role in maintaining the resting membrane potential of excitable cells. Interestingly, tingling compounds have been shown to induce neuronal excitation by inhibiting KCNK channels. We addressed the question of whether it was plausible that KCNK channels could constitute a physiologically relevant target for the sensory active compounds present in black peppercorns. Because previous studies have demonstrated that mouse trigeminal neurons respond to several pungent compounds, to which humans are also sensitive, we used a primary culture of mouse trigeminal neurons to investigate whether the effect of piperine on these cell types could also be mediated by KCNK channels. We observed that even in the presence of classical TRP-antagonists, piperine was still able to activate a fraction of trigeminal neurons. Furthermore, our results showed that piperine is capable of inducing neuronal depolarization by a mechanism that does not require extracellular Na+ or Ca2+. This depolarization was mediated by the inhibition of a background K+ conductance, most likely corresponding to the KCNK channels of the TASK subfamily. We then performed a screening with 12 other pungent and/or tingling chemosensates isolated from black peppercorns. These compounds were evaluated on Xenopus laevis oocytes expressing the human orthologues of KCNK3, KNCK9 and KCNK18, which we previously showed to be inhibited by piperine. Remarkably, almost all of the isolated chemosensates inhibited the basal activity of hKCNK3, with 1-(octadeca-2E,4E,13/12Z-trienoyl)pyrrolidine acting as one of the most potent natural blockers for hKCNK3 found to date. Our results suggest that KCNK channels, especially KCNK3, are likely to play a complementary role to TRP channels in the complex orosensory impression elicited by black peppercorns, while they also help to expand the pharmacological knowledge of KCNK channels