Comparative molecular analysis of old olive (Olea europaea L.) genotypes from Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey

Olive is an important Mediterranean tree species having many different ways of utilizations. The olive grove is an important farming sector in Turkey and dates back to thousands years, particularly in Anatolia. An historical culture of olive resulted in a broad genetic base for olive which is a long-lived tree. We compared the genetic profiles of six old olive cultivars from an Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey to 15 modern Turkish olive cultivars from different geographical origins. The RAPD profiles successfully clarified the molecular relationships among the genotypes tested. Seventeen RAPD primers generated 153 reproducible bands, 81% of which were polymorphic. The data were subjected tocluster and principle coordinates analyses. Cluster analysis supported three small groups based on geographical origins and these groups did not include any of the old cultivars. The old cultivars scattered around the ungrouped accessions and formed four subgroups. Principle coordinate resulted in similar overall patterns. Our results revealed that although sampled from a relatively narrow region, the old olive cultivars have broad genetic basis and are closely related to some of present-daycultivars/clones

Spatial Distribution of the Incompressible Strips at Aharonov-Bohm Interferometer

In this work, the edge physics of an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer (ABI) defined on a two dimensional electron gas, subject to strong perpendicular magnetic field B, is investigated. We solve the three dimensional Poisson equation using numerical techniques starting from the crystal growth parameters and surface image of the sample. The potential profiles of etched and gate defined geometries are compared and it is found that the etching yields a steeper landscape. The spatial distribution of the incompressible strips is investigated as a function of the gate voltage and applied magnetic field, where the imposed current is confined to. AB interference is investigated due to scattering processes between two incompressible "edge-states".Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

CIDI-Lung-Seg: A Single-Click Annotation Tool for Automatic Delineation of Lungs from CT Scans

Accurate and fast extraction of lung volumes from computed tomography (CT) scans remains in a great demand in the clinical environment because the available methods fail to provide a generic solution due to wide anatomical variations of lungs and existence of pathologies. Manual annotation, current gold standard, is time consuming and often subject to human bias. On the other hand, current state-of-the-art fully automated lung segmentation methods fail to make their way into the clinical practice due to their inability to efficiently incorporate human input for handling misclassifications and praxis. This paper presents a lung annotation tool for CT images that is interactive, efficient, and robust. The proposed annotation tool produces an "as accurate as possible" initial annotation based on the fuzzy-connectedness image segmentation, followed by efficient manual fixation of the initial extraction if deemed necessary by the practitioner. To provide maximum flexibility to the users, our annotation tool is supported in three major operating systems (Windows, Linux, and the Mac OS X). The quantitative results comparing our free software with commercially available lung segmentation tools show higher degree of consistency and precision of our software with a considerable potential to enhance the performance of routine clinical tasks.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures; to appear in the proceedings of 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2014

Multi-Scale Deformable Alignment and Content-Adaptive Inference for Flexible-Rate Bi-Directional Video Compression

The lack of ability to adapt the motion compensation model to video content is an important limitation of current end-to-end learned video compression models. This paper advances the state-of-the-art by proposing an adaptive motion-compensation model for end-to-end rate-distortion optimized hierarchical bi-directional video compression. In particular, we propose two novelties: i) a multi-scale deformable alignment scheme at the feature level combined with multi-scale conditional coding, ii) motion-content adaptive inference. In addition, we employ a gain unit, which enables a single model to operate at multiple rate-distortion operating points. We also exploit the gain unit to control bit allocation among intra-coded vs. bi-directionally coded frames by fine tuning corresponding models for truly flexible-rate learned video coding. Experimental results demonstrate state-of-the-art rate-distortion performance exceeding those of all prior art in learned video coding.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) 202

Applying virtual reality to teach the software development process to novice software engineers

Software development is a complicated process that requires experienced human resources to produce successful software products. Although this process needs experience from the individuals, it is hard to provide this experience without encountering real incidents during the software development process. To fill this gap, this study proposes a Virtual Reality Based Software Development Framework (VR-SODEF), which provides an interactive virtual reality experience for individuals learning about the tasks of software development starting from requirement analysis through software testing. In the VR-SODEF, the participant takes on the role of a novice software developer being recruited into a virtual software development organisation who should work alongside five virtual characters, played by artificial intelligence. This exclusive viewpoint draws participants from the 2D separation of the classical experience and virtually into the world of the software development itself. Participants experience the intense dramatic elements created for simulation and confront the challenges of virtual software practitioners in a somewhat uncompromising virtual simulation environment. To examine the efficiency of the VR-SODEF, it was tested on 32 computing students, with results indicating that virtual reality can be an effective educational medium, especially for skills that might traditionally be acquired through experience rather than traditional classroom-based teaching

Temporal changes in the gene expression heterogeneity during brain development and aging

Cells in largely non-mitotic tissues such as the brain are prone to stochastic (epi-)genetic alterations that may cause increased variability between cells and individuals over time. Although increased interindividual heterogeneity in gene expression was previously reported, whether this process starts during development or if it is restricted to the aging period has not yet been studied. The regulatory dynamics and functional significance of putative aging-related heterogeneity are also unknown. Here we address these by a meta-analysis of 19 transcriptome datasets from three independent studies, covering diverse human brain regions. We observed a significant increase in inter-individual heterogeneity during aging (20 + years) compared to postnatal development (0 to 20 years). Increased heterogeneity during aging was consistent among different brain regions at the gene level and associated with lifespan regulation and neuronal functions. Overall, our results show that increased expression heterogeneity is a characteristic of aging human brain, and may influence aging-related changes in brain functions

The comparative performance and behaviour of concrete elements containing glass-fibre reinforced plastic reinforcing bars.

Corrosion of steel reinforcement is a major concern in concrete construction, particularly in aggressive environments. Therefore corrosion resistant materials such as fibre composites are becoming increasingly feasible as an alternative concrete reinforcement. There are relatively few reported design guidelines for fibre composites in concrete.Hence, there is an urgent need for research and development to extend existing guidelines and standards such as those produced by the UK Institution of Structural Engineers and the ACI Committee (US), to encourage the wider use and acceptance of fibre composites as an alternative to steel in reinforced concrete elements.This investigation compares the behaviour and properties of a range of reinforced concrete beams under two point loading comprising different concrete grades and types using both steel and Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) as primary and secondary reinforcement. A variety of conventional and 'novel' rebar configurations were used to assess their effect upon material efficiency and load capacity. Compressive and tensile strength and elastic moduli of all component properties were measured together with load, deflection, rebar and concrete strains on the reinforced concrete beams. Health and safety concepts through a risk assessment process were introduced for the testing at an early stage of the investigation.Principal measures of beam performance include the ultimate load capacity, stiffness and failure modes together with a 'performance quotient'; a mathematical expression derived as an efficiency comparator for beams of different types and composition. Photographic and video records were also used to monitor behaviour throughout. Experimental measurements generally showed good agreement with the corresponding theoretical, quasi-theoretical and design based values although the latter tended to overestimate the structural performance of the beams. In general, load capacity increased with increase in main rebar area but was affected to a lesser extent by concrete strength. The beams reinforced with steel had a greater load capacity than those reinforced with GFRP. However, GFRP reinforced beams generally displayed a greater capacity to absorb energy than steel but exhibited reduced stiffness at any given load although this was enhanced by the inclusion of glass fibres in the mix. Cracks in the GFRP reinforced beams were usually larger and deeper compared with those in the equivalent steel reinforced beams. Failure of the more lightly reinforced steel beams, including one GFRP beam, were predominantly in 'flexure'. The more heavily reinforced steel and the remainder of the GFRP reinforced beams exhibited mostly 'shear-bond' type failure. The 'novel' rebar geometry proved to be a simple, efficient and viable alternative to conventional rebar configurations in terms of load capacity and preferred mode of failure.It is suggested that further developments and applications could focus on small reinforced concrete elements such as lintels in aggressive environments and further refinement of the 'performance quotient' concept