A novel user-centered design for personalized video summarization

In the past, several automatic video summarization systems had been proposed to generate video summary. However, a generic video summary that is generated based only on audio, visual and textual saliencies will not satisfy every user. This paper proposes a novel system for generating semantically meaningful personalized video summaries, which are tailored to the individual user's preferences over video semantics. Each video shot is represented using a semantic multinomial which is a vector of posterior semantic concept probabilities. The proposed system stitches video summary based on summary time span and top-ranked shots that are semantically relevant to the user's preferences. The proposed summarization system is evaluated using both quantitative and subjective evaluation metrics. The experimental results on the performance of the proposed video summarization system are encouraging

Bacteriophages as a model for studying carbon regulation in aquatic system

The interconversion of carbon in organic, inorganic and refractory carbon is still beyond the grasp of present environmentalists. The bacteria and their phages, being the most abundant constituents of the aquatic environment, represent an ideal model for studing carbon regulation in the aquatic system. The refractory dissolved organic carbon (DOC), a recently coined terminology from the microbe-driven conversion of bioavailable organic carbon into difficult-to-digest refractory DOC by microbial carbon pump (MCP), is suggested to have the potential to revolutionize our view of carbon sequestration. It is estimated that about 95% of organic carbon is in the form of refractory DOC, which is the largest pool of organic matter in the ocean. The refractory DOC is supposed to be the major factor in the global carbon cycle whose source is not yet well understood. A key element of the carbon cycle is the microbial conversion of dissolved organic carbon into inedible forms. The time studies of phage-host interaction under control conditions reveal their impact on the total carbon content of the source and their interconversion among organic, inorganic and other forms of carbon with respect to control source. The TOC- analysis statistics stipulate an increase in inorganic carbon content by 15-25 percent in the sample with phage as compared to the sample without phage. The results signify a 60-70 fold increase in inorganic carbon content in sample with phage, whereas, 50-55 fold in the case of sample without phages as compared with control. This increase in inorganic carbon content may be due to lysis of the host cell releasing its cellular constituents and utilization of carbon constituent for phage assembly and development. It also proves the role of phages in regulating the carbon flow in aquatic systems like oceans, where their concentration outnumbered other species

HIV and tuberculosis in India

The global impact of the converging dual epidemics of tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodefi ciency virus (HIV) is one of the major public health challenges of our time. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports 9.2 million new cases of TB in 2006 of whom 7.7% were HIV-infected. Tuberculosis is the most common opportunistic infection in HIV-infected patients as well as the leading cause of death. Further, there has been an increase in rates of drug resistant tuberculosis, including multi-drug (MDRTB) and extensively drug resistant TB (XDRTB), which are diffi cult to treat and contribute to increased mortality. The diagnosis of TB is based on sputum smear microscopy, a 100-year old technique and chest radiography, which has problems of specifi city. Extra-pulmonary, disseminated and sputum smear negative manifestations are more common in patients with advanced immunosuppression. Newer diagnostic tests are urgently required that are not only sensitive and specifi c but easy to use in remote and resource-poor settings. Treatment of HIV-TB co-infection is complex and associated with high pill burden, overlapping drug toxicities, risk of immune reconstitution infl ammatory syndrome (IRIS) and challenges related to adherence. From a programmatic point of view, screening of all HIV-infected persons for tuberculosis and vice-versa will help identify co-infected patients who require treatment for both infections. This requires good coordination and communication between the TB and AIDS control programs, in India

Thirumoolar's Educational Policies

Saivism is one of the oldest religions in our country. The Saiva saints gave ‘Panniru Thirumuraikal (Thirumurai is a twelve-volume compendium of songs or hymns in praise of Shiva)’ to instill in the minds of the people of the world the feeling of God. Thirumanthiram by Thirumoolar is the 10th Thirumarai among the religious books of such a special Thirumarai Panuval (Thirumurai Discourses). Thirumoolar has created a book that explains the good life, the system, and the subtleties of Jnana Yoga (The Path of attaining Knowledge) for all the people of the world to undertake. In Thirumanthiram, Thirumoolar has effectively laid down the principles of education, questioning, and illiteracy for the well-being of the people of the country. Education is the basis of the principle of individual morality. Education is something that enables an individual to excel in life. Education has the power to change society. If every human being is to have good discipline, there must be education. That is why our great sages have emphasized the importance of education in their books. Thirumoolar, a Saiva devotee, has also explained the education of individual life in Thirumanthiram. He has emphasized the significance of wisdom education in enabling man to live as a human being. This thesis explains the educational principles that Thirumoolar proposed for the betterment of individual lives

Tuberculosis immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome: profile of an enigmatic condition

Tuberculosis Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome (TB-IRIS) in HIV co-infected TB patients is an intriguing but frequently occurring phenomenon experienced by patients after initiating anti retroviral therapy. It is characterized by paradoxical worsening of clinical and radiological manifestations of TB, after initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy, when improvement in the general condition of the patient is usually anticipated. This paradoxical reaction is brought about by a cascade of inflammatory reactions triggered by the recovery of the immune system both in quality and quantity. Manifestations of TB-IRIS range from mild self-limiting symptoms to life threatening compressive syndromes that could rarely be fatal. Often, this condition is confused with treatment failure or drug toxicity, which could lead to unnecessary drug interruption or substitution. Recognition of this syndrome assumes significance in the context of these two diseases, which mandate prolonged therapy with very high adherence to achieve the desired results. This article provides an overview of the risk factors, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, available diagnostic tools and treatment strategies for TB-IRIS with impli-cations for patients and personnel involved in TB/HIV care

Gasoline flame behavior at elevated temperature and pressure

Freely propagating laminar premixed flames of stoichiometric mixtures of gasoline surrogate and iso-octane with air are computed using three chemi- cal kinetics mechanisms of varied complexity and detail. A good agreement of the computed burning velocities with past experimental data is observed. The burning velocities of these mixtures at temperature of 850 ≤ T ≤ 950 decrease with pressure up to about 3 MPa and starts to increase beyond this pressure. This contrasting behavior is related to the role of pressure dependent reaction involving OH and the influence of this radical on the fuel consumption rate. The results suggest that the overall order of the com- bustion reaction is larger than two at pressures higher than 3 MPa. Hence, one must be cautious in extending the commonly used laminar flame speed correlation with pressure to thermo-chemical conditions of interest for future engines.KACS

Salient region detection using patch level and region level image abstractions

In this letter, a novel salient region detection approach is proposed. Firstly, color contrast cue and color distribution cue are computed by exploiting patch level and region level image abstractions in a unified way, where these two cues are fused to compute an initial saliency map. A simple and computationally efficient adaptive saliency refinement approach is applied to suppress saliency of background noises, and to emphasize saliency of objects uniformly. Finally, the saliency map is computed by integrating the refined saliency map with center prior map. In order to compensate different needs in speed/accuracy tradeoff, three variants of the proposed approach are also presented in this letter. The experimental results on a large image dataset show that the proposed approach achieve the best performance over several state-of-the-art approaches

Modularity and the impact of buyer-supplier relationships on the survival of suppliers

Modularity in product design and flexible supply chains is increasingly common in buyer-supplier relationships. Although the benefits of supply chain flexibility and component modularity for end-product manufacturers are accepted, little is known about their impact on suppliers. We advance the literature on modularity by exploring how three aspects of a supplier's relationships with its customers affect the supplier's survival: duration of buyer-supplier relationships, autonomy from customers, and links to prominent buyers. We compared the effects of these aspects of buyer-supplier relationships for low- and high-modularity components. Using data on U.S. carburetor and clutch manufacturers from 1918 to 1942, we found that suppliers of high-modularity components benefited more from autonomy provided by potential customers, whereas suppliers of low-modularity components benefited more from ties to higher status customers. Both benefited from autonomy generated by existing customers. Thus, relationships that require trust and extensive sets of interfirm routines, as do those for low-modularity components, led to both greater relationship benefits and greater constraints

(E)-2-(2-Formyl­phen­oxy­meth­yl)-3-phenyl­prop-2-ene­nitrile

In the title compound, C17H13NO2, the dihedral angle between the benzene and the phenyl ring is 65.92 (7)°. The carbonitrile side chain is almost linear, the C—C—N angle being 175.55 (14)°. The crystal structure is stabilized by inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions