Cheerleading: A Reflection of Changing Gender Norms in Sport

Today, cheerleaders are often seen as either a symbol of youthful prestige, wholesome attractiveness, peer leadership and popularity; or, they are seen as a symbol of mindless enthusiasm, shallow boosterism, objectified sexuality, and promiscuous availability. Both of these descriptions describe cheerleaders in a traditionally feminine way, which arguably is normal, as cheerleading today is seen as a feminine activity. However, this was not always the case. As collegiate sports became more and more organized and popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, cheerleading emerged. Sport during this time was, and arguably still is, seen as a reflection of ideal masculinity and cheerleading, as a part of the sporting world, was no exception. Although cheerleading began as a reflection of ideal masculinity, it has come to reflect ideal femininity in American society and athletic culture following a cultural shift that began in the 1920s when the new woman emerged and continued after world war II when women were allowed and, in some cases, like cheerleading, encouraged into spaces that they were previously denied access

A probabilistic neural network computer vision system for corn kernel damage evaluation

An investigation was conducted to determine whether image processing and machine vision technology could be used for identification of the damage factor in corn kernels. Prominent types of corn kernel damage were found to be germ damage and blue-eye mold damage. A sample set containing 720 kernels with approximately equal numbers of blue-eye mold-damaged, germ-damaged, and sound kernels was obtained and evaluated by human inspectors and the computer vision system. While the computer vision system developed was slightly less consistent in classification than trained human inspectors, it did prove to be a promising step toward inspection automation;Two probabilistic neural network architectures were implemented. The first network, based on a universal smoothing factor algorithm, was used to segment the collected images into blue-eye mold-damaged, germ-damaged, sound germ, shadow in sound germ, hard starch, and soft starch areas. Morphological features from each of the segmented areas were then input to a second probabilistic neural network which used genetic algorithms to optimize a unique smoothing factor for each network input. Output of the second layer network was overall kernel classification of blue-eye mold-damaged, germ-damaged, and sound. Overall accuracy of classification on unseen images was 78%, 94%, and 93% for blue-eye mold-damaged, germ-damaged, and sound categories, respectively. Correct classification for sound and damaged categories on unseen images was 92% and 93%, respectively

Probabilistic Neural Networks for Segmentation of Features in Corn Kernel Images

A method is presented for clustering of pixel color information to segment features within corn kernel images. Features for blue–eye mold, germ damage, sound germ, shadow in sound germ, hard starch, and soft starch were identified by red, green, and blue (RGB) pixel value inputs to a probabilistic neural network. A data grouping method to obtain an exemplar set for adjustment of the Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) weights and optimization of a universal smoothing factor is described. Of the 14,427 available exemplars (RGB pixel values sampled from previously collected images), 778 were used for adjustment of the network weights, 737 were used for optimization of the PNN smoothing parameter, and 12,912 were reserved for network validation. Based on a universal PNN smoothing factor of 0.05, the network was able to provide an overall pixel classification accuracy of 86% on calibration data and 75% on unseen data. Much of the misclassification was due to overlap of pixel values among classes. When an additional network layer was added to combine similar classes (blue–eye mold and germ damage, sound germ and shadow in sound germ, and hard and soft starch), network results were significantly enhanced so that accuracy on validation data was 94.7%. Image quality was shown to be important to the success of this algorithm as lighting and camera depth of field effects caused artifacts in the segmented images

Reproducing Failures in Fault Signatures

Software often fails in the field, however reproducing and debugging field failures is very challenging: the failure-inducing input may be missing, and the program setup can be complicated and hard to reproduce by the developers. In this paper, we propose to generate fault signatures from the failure locations and the original source code to reproduce the faults in small executable programs. We say that a fault signature reproduces the fault in the original program if the two failed in the same location, triggered the same error conditions after executing the same selective sequences of failure-inducing statements. A fault signature aims to contain only sufficient statements that can reproduce the faults. That way, it provides some context to inform how a fault is developed and also avoids unnecessary complexity and setups that may block fault diagnosis. To compute fault signatures from the failures, we applied a path-sensitive static analysis tool to generate a path that leads to the fault, and then applied an existing syntactic patching tool to convert the path into an executable program. Our evaluation on real-world bugs from Corebench, BugBench, and Manybugs shows that fault signatures can reproduce the fault for the original programs. Because fault signatures are less complex, automatic test input generation tools generated failure-inducing inputs that could not be generated by using the entire programs. Some failure-inducing inputs can be directly transferred to the original programs. Our experimental data are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5430155

Cover crop, manure application timing, nitrification inhibitors, and biochar impact on nitrogen loss in Midwestern soils

Manures are known to be useful fertilizers, but challenges associated with equipment availability, timeliness of field activities, and storage management can make the utilization of manure as a fertilizer more challenging than other options. As farmers face greater scrutiny about their production practices and their impact on water quality, the need for tools in nitrogen management increases. These include, but are not limited to: cover crops, nitrification inhibitors, and biochar used with animal manures. These three topics will be investigated in lab settings their efficacy covered in this thesis. Cover crops have the ability to protect the soil from erosion, provide organic matter through biomass, and assist in nutrient retention. We investigated the most optima time to apply liquid swine manure with a cover crop, as to provide best practice techniques for farmers. Nitrification inhibitors are applied with a fertilizer and work to disrupt the nitrogen cycle, improving nutrient uptake for the crop. We are able to determine that cover crops may be used with swine manure for NO3-N retention, if cover crop is given adequate time to emerge and establish itself A meta-analysis was completed to determine the effectiveness of these inhibitors in a variety of settings in the Midwestern United States. Biochar works as a soil amendment, provides water and nutrient retention, and adds carbon to the soil. Nitrification inhibitors are a great addition to fertilizers due to their ability to retain nitrogen, offering corn yield benefits. Biochar also has the possibility of being a beneficial addition to liquid swine manure to provide nutrient retention in soils. The objective of this thesis was to understand better how each of these tools can assist in nitrogen management in agriculture, in order to provide recommendations for those in the agriculture industry

De definitie van specialistische geneesmiddelen

Samenvatting Vanwege bekostigingsproblemen met bepaalde geneesmiddelen is er een afbakeningsdiscussie rond dit onderwerp ontstaan. Buiten het ziekenhuis worden soms geneesmiddelen gebruikt waarvan zorgverzekeraars vinden dat ze niet via de extramurale geneesmiddelfinanciering moeten worden bekostigd maar dat ze ten laste van het ziekenhuisbudget zouden moeten komen. Ziekenhuizen zijn bereid deze geneesmiddelen te betalen als ze er maar voor gecompenseerd worden. Tegen deze achtergrond is een mogelijke oplossing voor de financieringsproblematiek om extramuraal afgeleverde geneesmiddelen te scheiden in specialistische en generalistische middelen. Door de specialistische geneesmiddelen medisch-inhoudelijk, beleidsmatig en financieel onder de reikwijdte van het ziekenhuis te brengen kan de continuïteit in behandeling door de medisch specialist ook worden doorgetrokken naar de farmacotherapie, ongeacht waar de patiënt zich bevindt (intramuraal of extramuraal). Voor generalistische middelen zou de medisch-inhoudelijke, beleidsmatige en financiële praktijk niet anders zijn dan in de huidige situatie. etc ..

Comparison between unipolar and bipolar single phase grid-connected inverters for PV applications

An inverter is essential for the interfacing of photovoltaic panels with the AC network. There are many possible inverter topologies and inverter switching schemes and each one will have its own relative advantages and disadvantages. Efficiency and output current distortion are two important factors governing the choice of inverter system. In this paper, it is argued that current controlled inverters offer significant advantages from the point of view of minimisation of current distortion. Two inverter switching strategies are explored in detail. These are the unipolar current controlled inverter and the bipolar current controlled inverter. With respect to low frequency distortion, previously published works provide theoretical arguments in favour of bipolar switching. On the other hand it has also been argued that the unipolar switched inverter offers reduced switching losses and generates less EMI. On efficiency grounds, it appears that the unipolar switched inverter has an advantage. However, experimental results presented in this paper show that the level of low frequency current distortion in the unipolar switched inverter is such that it can only comply with Australian Standard 4777.2 above a minimum output current. On the other hand it is shown that at the same current levels bipolar switching results in reduced low frequency harmonics