Volumetric Calibration Refinement using masked back projection and image correlation superposition

This paper deals with a new, reconstruction based, approach of refining a volumetric calibration. The technique is based on a 2D cross-correlation between particle images on the sensor plane with a planar back projection from a tomographic reconstruction in the same sensor plane to determine potential disparities between the initial camera calibration and the measurement. Additive superposition of the correlation maps from different sets or particle images allows reducing the influence of noise and ghost particles such that the systematic errors in the calibration can be corrected. The different sections describe the theory, the principle processing steps and the convergence of the procedure. Furthermore, the concept is proven by simulating the entire process of the measurement chain, with the help of a synthetic comparison. The results show that disparities of over 9 pixels could be corrected to an average of below 0.1 pixels during the refinement steps. Finally, the technique demonstrates it´s potential to measured data, where the numbers of outliers in the raw results are reduced after the volumetric calibration refinement

An Historical Analysis of Character Education

What is termed character education in today’s world has been called many things throughout the history of education in this country. Character education has been both a formal and informal part of schools. At times it has been integrated in small ways into many other pieces of the curriculum. At other times it has been a unique piece of the curriculum as highlighted by the variety of standalone character education programs that are currently running in schools today. Much of character education in the United States can be closely tied in its roots to the education of character in Europe, which laid the foundation for the formal American system of education

Violence as Surrealist Play in Angela Carter's Shadow Dance

Honeybuzzard, one of the main characters of Angela Carter’s début novel Shadow Dance (1966), has been described by one critic as playing like a big cat, tirelessly and cruelly; “anything and anyone is fair game” (Sage 11). Honeybuzzard has organised his life completely in accordance with the play impulse, and he is not interested in anything structured by rational behaviour, work or profit. He is engaged in a constant process of making the Pleasure Principle triumph over the Reality Principle as he acts according to his capricious desires, which will turn increasingly violent and destructive as the narrative spirals towards its transgressive dénouement.Honeybuzzard’s violence can possibly be read as “a kind of (anti-)morality play which aims to undermine through exaggeration” (Gamble 54), but I think this reading does not fully acknowledge the subversive potential of his playful behaviour. In this paper, I propose to read Honeybuzzard’s nihilist play through the prism of surrealism – a movement itself known for its proliferating playfulness as well as its self-professed subversive aims

Observations on regeneration of the pedipalp and legs of scorpions

An Opisthacanthus asper (Peters, 1861) (Hormuridae) shows a relatively rare example of pedipalp regeneration in which the lost tibia and tarsus was replaced by a smaller, curved element of uncertain homology to either the fixed or free finger. A comparable abnormal palp described in the literature hints that pedipalps can only regenerate a structure of this form, regardless of the site of amputation. An Olivierus caucasicus (Nordmann, 1840) (Buthidae) is described in which claws (pretarsus) of leg III regenerated directly at the distal end of the tibia, while in leg IV the claws regenerated at the end of a truncated section of the metatarsus. This supports previous observations that scorpions can only regenerate the pretarsus of the leg, again irrespective of where on the limb the original breakage occurred

Keeping calm on a busy day—an interpersonal skill home care patients desire in health workers: hermeneutical phenomenological method

publishedVersio

Die Bedeutung des anterioren Gyrus cinguli in der Pathogenese schizophrener Erkrankungen

Der anteriore Gyrus cinguli (ACC) ist eine zentrale Struktur des rostralen limbischen Systems, die in den letzten Jahren zunehmend in das Interesse der psychiatrischen Forschung rückte. Bei schizophren Erkrankten treten häufig Störungen der Aufmerksamkeit, des Antriebs und der Affekte auf. Bei der Realisierung dieser Funktionen nimmt der ACC eine wichtige Rolle ein. Sowohl regionale in-vivo Aktivitätsmessungen als auch postmortale Untersuchungen weisen auf eine Alteration dieser Gehirnstruktur bei schizophrenen Störungen hin. Frühere morphometrische in-vivo Studien benutzten unterschiedliche Grenzdefinitionen und sind durch die Untersuchung verschiedener Teilbereiche des ACC schwer vergleichbar. Die vorliegende Studie untersuchte standardisiert mit der strukturellen Kernspintomographie, sowie unter Anwendung eines etablierten Datenverarbeitungsverfahrens (BRAINS) die Volumina der grauen Substanzklasse des rechts- und linkshemisphärischen ACC bei schizophrenen Patienten im Vergleich zu gesunden Personen. Es wurde auf die Auswahl einer genau definierten Gruppe männlicher Patienten hoher Fallzahl und eine nach Alter, Geschlecht, Händigkeit und Ausbildungsniveau entsprechenden Kontrollgruppe geachtet. Um selektive Veränderungen einzelner Bereiche des anterioren Gyrus cinguli aufzuzeigen, wurde die Gesamtstruktur in vier Subregionen eingeteilt. Es konnten unter Betrachtung des gesamten ACC und seiner vier Subregionen signifikante Gruppendifferenzen beobachtet werden. Die Volumenreduktionen stellten sich überwiegend rechtshemisphärisch und in den rostralen Anteilen dar. Ebenfalls ließ sich eine inverse Korrelation von Volumenreduktionen des ACC mit schizophrenen "Positivsymptomen" nachweisen. Die Zusammenhänge zwischen den klinischen Daten und verminderten Volumina zeigten sich ebenfalls überwiegend im vorderen Abschnitt des anterioren Gyrus cinguli. Positive Korrelationen zwischen produktiv-psychotischen Symptomen und einem reduzierten Ausmaß des ACC zeigten sich ausschließlich linkshemisphärisch. Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten, dass an einer großen Patientenstichprobe strukturelle Veränderungen des anterioren Gyrus cinguli bei schizophren Erkrankten aufgezeigt wurden. Die Rolle des ACC in der Pathophysiologie schizophrener Erkrankungen sollte in Zukunft beispielsweise durch die kombinierte Anwendung struktureller und funktioneller Bildgebungsverfahren, sowie durch Longitudinalstudien weiter abgeklärt werden

Graft viability and transfusion related complications in patients undergoing stem cell transplantation

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a treatment strategy for patients with hematopoietic malignancies and inborn errors of metabolism or immunodeficiencies. A successful clinical outcome depends on many factors, such as underlying disease, the patients’ status, treatment protocol, donor, graft source and occurrence and severity of complications such as graft versus host disease (GVHD) and infections. The scope of this thesis is to achieve greater understanding of clinical effects and immunological mechanisms of blood group differences and cellular transfusion in patients undergoing HSCT. In addition we investigate the impact of cell graft quality. HSCT can be performed across the ABO blood group barrier but the impact of blood group incompatibility in HSCT is debated. In scientific paper I we analyzed the impact of blood group differences on graft failure (GF). This is a retrospective single center study including 224 patients who underwent myeloablative allogeneic HSCT with grafts from an unrelated donor in 1997-2003. Graft failure (GF) was seen in 6 patients (2.7%). Major ABO mismatch and HLA allele mismatch was significantly associated with GF in the multivariate analysis. In scientific paper II we retrospectively analyzed 310 patients receiving reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) HSCT in 1998-2011. We found no influence of ABO mismatch on overall clinical outcome. However, patients with an ABO mismatched graft required more blood transfusions. We then investigated antibody related complications post-HSCT. Autoimmune hemolytic anemia did not affect overall survival (OS) or transplant related mortality (TRM). Patients with ABO related antibody complications post-HSCT had inferior OS and more TRM. These studies imply that the role of ABO mismatches is not obvious. However, other factors of greater impact may override the effect of ABO donor-recipient differences thus obfuscating its influence. In scientific paper III we retrospectively investigated the impact of HSCT grafts with inferior quality on clinical outcome in 144 patients receiving peripheral blood stem cell grafts. Graft quality was measured as viability of a frozen/thawed control sample. Patients who received grafts with inferior quality developed acute GVHD more frequently and had higher TRM. Grafts with white blood cell count >300 x109/L had lower viability. In conclusion, graft quality influence clinical outcome after HSCT, hence, conditions for graft storage and handling need to be optimized. In patients that develop mucositis or breakthrough infections after HSCT, granulocyte transfusions (GCX) can be used. Scientific paper IV addresses GCX treatment in 85 patients between 1998 and 2014. GCX can be obtained from donors pretreated with steroids only (S-GCX) or steroids and G-CSF (GCSF-GCX). The overall response to GCX treatment was similar between S-GCX and GCSF-GCX but more complete responses were observed in the GCSF-GCX group. Patients who received GCX due to mucositis benefitted most from GCX whereas the effects of GCX in patients treated due to infection was not as clear. Adverse events (AE) were reported in 36 cases of which 6 were life-threatening or fatal pulmonary AEs. All severe AEs reported were seen in patients treated due to severe infection, further complicating the decision to use GCX treatment in these patients