Table Structure Extraction with Bi-directional Gated Recurrent Unit Networks

Tables present summarized and structured information to the reader, which makes table structure extraction an important part of document understanding applications. However, table structure identification is a hard problem not only because of the large variation in the table layouts and styles, but also owing to the variations in the page layouts and the noise contamination levels. A lot of research has been done to identify table structure, most of which is based on applying heuristics with the aid of optical character recognition (OCR) to hand pick layout features of the tables. These methods fail to generalize well because of the variations in the table layouts and the errors generated by OCR. In this paper, we have proposed a robust deep learning based approach to extract rows and columns from a detected table in document images with a high precision. In the proposed solution, the table images are first pre-processed and then fed to a bi-directional Recurrent Neural Network with Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) followed by a fully-connected layer with soft max activation. The network scans the images from top-to-bottom as well as left-to-right and classifies each input as either a row-separator or a column-separator. We have benchmarked our system on publicly available UNLV as well as ICDAR 2013 datasets on which it outperformed the state-of-the-art table structure extraction systems by a significant margin.Comment: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR) 2019, Sydney, Australi

Exploring the Purchasing Motives of Young Pakistani Consumers for Foreign Brands

Cross-border service relationships are considerable issues in Pakistan, which tend researchers to work in this area of research. The core purpose of this study was to explore the impact of quality, satisfaction, and value on purchase intentions for foreign brands among young Pakistani customers. The data was collected from a random sample of 500 university students through questionnaire designed by the researchers. The findings suggest that providing quality and satisfaction to Pakistani ethnocentric customers does not guarantee the brand to earn loyalty in return. Foreign brands can succeed in creating brand value through creating a convinced link with some tangible benefits and by creating means of self-presentation for the customers. The student’s responses can be assumed as a limitation of this study, which can be justified by considering the fact that the study is first of its type in the Pakistani environment

Prevalence, Comparison, and Determinants of Smoking among Young Schoolchildren in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Smoking is one of the most serious health issues among all age groups, particularly in children globally including the Gulf region. However, there are little data about the prevalence in public and private schools and determinants of smoking among adolescents in Saudi Arabia. AIM: The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence, compare, and determine smoking habits among male children in public and private schools. METHOD: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Dammam city, KSA. The data were collected from 866 male children studying in public and private schools. Sample was calculated through stratified random sampling. The modified “Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS)” was used to collect information. RESULTS: The total number of children recruited was 866 (223 from private and 643 from public schools). The mean age of children studied was 14.20 ± 1.03 years in both groups. The result shows that overall 27.8% of children tried to smoke cigarette both in public and private schools. The prevalence of smoking is higher in public schools’ children than in private schools (30% vs. 21%; p = 0.005). In addition, wrong perception of comfortable feeling after smoking, easy access to cigarettes, parent’s addiction, and smoking in front of children are the determining factors. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the prevalence of cigarettes smoking among children exists in considerable proportion. It is higher in public schools children. The health and education authorities should take urgent steps to encounter this major health issue

Magnetite Molybdenum Disulphide Nanofluid of Grade Two: A Generalized Model with Caputo-Fabrizio Derivative

Heat and mass transfer analysis in magnetite molybdenum disulphide nanofluid of grade two is studied. MoS2 powder with each particle of nanosize is dissolved in engine oil chosen as base fluid. A generalized form of grade-two model is considered with fractional order derivatives of Caputo and Fabrizio. The fluid over vertically oscillating plate is subjected to isothermal temperate and species concentration. The problem is modeled in terms of partial differential equations with sufficient initial conditions and boundary conditions. Fractional form of Laplace transform is used and exact solutions in closed form are determined for velocity field, temperature and concentration distributions. These solutions are then plotted for embedded parameters and discussed. Results for the physical quantities of interest (skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number) are computed in tables. Results obtained in this work are compared with some published results from the open literature

Uncertainty assisted robust tuberculosis identification with Bayesian convolutional neural networks

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that can lead towards death if left untreated. TB detection involves extraction of complex TB manifestation features such as lung cavity, air space consolidation, endobronchial spread, and pleural effusions from chest x-rays (CXRs). Deep learning based approach named convolutional neural network (CNN) has the ability to learn complex features from CXR images. The main problem is that CNN does not consider uncertainty to classify CXRs using softmax layer. It lacks in presenting the true probability of CXRs by differentiating confusing cases during TB detection. This paper presents the solution for TB identification by using Bayesian-based convolutional neural network (B-CNN). It deals with the uncertain cases that have low discernibility among the TB and non-TB manifested CXRs. The proposed TB identification methodology based on B-CNN is evaluated on two TB benchmark datasets, i.e., Montgomery and Shenzhen. For training and testing of proposed scheme we have utilized Google Colab platform which provides NVidia Tesla K80 with 12 GB of VRAM, single core of 2.3 GHz Xeon Processor, 12 GB RAM and 320 GB of disk. B-CNN achieves 96.42% and 86.46% accuracy on both dataset, respectively as compared to the state-of-the-art machine learning and CNN approaches. Moreover, B-CNN validates its results by filtering the CXRs as confusion cases where the variance of B-CNN predicted outputs is more than a certain threshold. Results prove the supremacy of B-CNN for the identification of TB and non-TB sample CXRs as compared to counterparts in terms of accuracy, variance in the predicted probabilities and model uncertainty

Cloreto de potássio como condicionador osmótico nutritivo de sementes para aumentar a tolerância ao sal em milho

The objective of this work was to determine if KCl could be a useful nutrient primer for safe seed germination in maize crop under salt stress conditions. Seed priming was done using 50 mmol  L-1 of muriate of potash, and germination and seedling growth were evaluated after salt stress with NaCl up to 50 mmol L-1. Another set of seeds was tested under the same salt stress conditions without priming. Under salinity stress, germination percentage, germination rate index, germination coefficient, and seedling vigor indexes were higher in primed seeds. In unprimed seeds, mean germination time increased, while the germination rate index and the fresh and dry matter mass decreased more sharply with salinity stress. The Na/K ratio was higher in unprimed seeds.O objetivo deste trabalho foi determinar se o KCl pode constituir um condicionador osmótico nutritivo, para a germinação segura da cultura do milho em condições de estresse salino. O osmocondicionamento das sementes foi feito com 50 mmol L‑1 de muriato de potássio, e a germinação e o desenvolvimento de plântulas foram avaliados após estresse salino por NaCl, até 50 mmol L‑1. Outro lote de sementes foi testado nas mesmas condições de estresse salino, sem condicionamento. Em condições de estresse salino, a percentagem de germinação, o índice da taxa de germinação, o coeficiente de germinação e os índices de vigor das plântulas foram maiores nas sementes condicionadas. Em sementes não condicionadas, o tempo médio de germinação aumentou, e o índice da taxa de germinação e as massas de matéria fresca e seca diminuíram mais acentuadamente com o estresse salino. A relação Na/K foi maior nas sementes não condicionadas

A Multicultural Demographic Study to Evaluate the Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on the Job Satisfaction across the Dental Industry

Objective: To evaluate the difference in working conditions as perceived by dentists during the pandemic and their professional satisfaction levels. Material and Methods:  An online survey was conducted using the convenience and snowball sampling methods. Two hundred seventy-two respondents across various countries answered information related to socio-demographic data and work satisfaction levels during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Results: 40.1% of dentists reported dissatisfied with their current work, while another 13.6% of dentists fell in the extremely dissatisfied category. 22.8% of dentists were significantly dissatisfied with their current income. Furthermore, 38.4% of the dentists were dissatisfied with physical working conditions, while 33.5% reported dissatisfaction with the freedom of working methods. Conclusion: This study was focused on the connection between various intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting working conditions, social interactions, and psychological stresses. From the findings of this multicultural study, we can see that dentists across different countries have been affected and have varying levels of dissatisfaction. Therefore, regulatory authorities must plan for support and interventional programs to help dental professionals pass this difficult period

PHYLOGENETIC AND DRUG- AND VACCINE-RESISTANCE PROFILES OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS AMONG CHILDREN WITH HIV CO-INFECTION IN PAKISTAN

Introduction: HIV-1 and hepatitis B virus (HBV) share common routes of transmission and therefore co-infection is common. In 2019, an HIV-1 outbreak that resulted in >1000 children being infected, predominantly through nosocomial transmission, occurred in Sindh, Pakistan. We conducted a phylogenetic and drug resistance analysis of the HBV Reverse Transcriptase (RT) gene in children with HIV-1 and HBV co-infection. Methodology: Blood samples were collected from 321 children with HIV who were recruited as part of a study to investigate the HIV-1 outbreak. All samples were tested for HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) using an ELISA assay, and positive samples were used to amplify and sequence the HBV RT gene. The phylogenetic relationship between sequences was analyzed, and drug- and vaccine- resistance mutations in the RT gene were explored. Results: Of 321 samples, 23% (n = 75) were positive for HBsAg on ELISA. Phylogenetic analysis of the sequences revealed that 63.5% of HBV sequences were sub-genotype D1, while the rest were sub-genotype D2. Cluster analysis revealed grouping of sub-genotype D1 sequences exclusively with Pakistani sequences, while clustering of sub-genotypes D2 predominantly with global sequences. The 236Y mutation associated with resistance to tenofovir was observed in 2.8% of HBV sequences. Additionally, seven vaccine escape mutations were observed, the most common being 128 V. Conclusion: Our study suggests ongoing transmission of HBV D1 and D2 sub-genotypes in the HIV-1 co-infected population, likely nosocomially, given common routes of HVB and HIV-1 transmission. The prevalence of major HBV drug- and vaccine-resistant mutations remains low. Surveillance for further transmissions and the possible emergence of major drug- or vaccine-resistant variants is required