Exploration of Marine Resources by Photographic Remote Sensing

The interpretation of photographs in oceanographic remote sensing is discussed. The photographs were made from spacecraft with two exceptions. Two photographs were made from aircraft. There were three types of film used to make the photographs: black-and-white, color, and color IR. Black and white photography is well known; it presents pictures in various shades of gray from black to white. Color film presents pictures in color, very nearly as the human eye sees them. Color IR film presents pictures in color also but not as seen by the human eye. Blue becomes much deeper blue, green is suppressed to some extent, and red is recorded beyond the visual range of the human eye, out in the near infrared. The most noticeable effect of the use of color IR film is that leaf materials which are highly reflective in the infrared part of the spectrum are presented as red

Experiments on Visual Acuity and the Visibility of Markings on the Ground in Long-duration Earth-Orbital Space Flight

Visual acuity and visibility of markings on ground in long duration earth orbital space fligh

Where’s Social Work? A Critical Analysis of Gender Invisibility, Ethical Conflict, and Advocacy in Medical Teams

The traditional biomedical and person-in-environment (PIE) perspectives are often found in conflict when framed within broader gender discrimination and consumerist health care practices. Our critical feminist analysis addresses the case of Katie, a vulnerable health care recipient, whose intersecting identities fall outside of the “margins of acceptability.” Communication deficits among team members and a lack of clear care protocols become evident. Insurance demands to justify coverage undermine the processes of beneficence and the ethic of care required for emancipatory advocacy. We present the tripartite paradigm of transformative complicity, cultural humility, and systems-based empowerment to address the complex ethical dilemmas that emerge. Strategies informed by experimental ethnography help us model effective transdisciplinary dialogue by inviting voices/commentators to rise from the margins (foot/endnotes) and decenter authorial power. Using an emancipatory social work framework, we offer actionable steps which, as revealed by our commentators, are often lacking from the medical team\u27s and care recipient’s toolbox. We call ffor discursive courage to chip away at the socially constructed myths of biological and moral deficit that merge gender, colorism, class, and invisibility in the web of historical and structural discrimination. In addition, we welcome service seekers, as therapeutic colleagues, in the process of systemic empowerment

Transformative Accomplices: Multicultural Community Organizing in a Transnational Educational Context.

The long-term existence of K through higher education programs and their discourses of inclusive diversity have not closed the achievement gap of minority students. Some minority students manage to ascend academically and this study examines the emergence of spaces for agency within the context of academic success. A historical framework of external (Puerto Rico) and internal (U.S.) colonialism is used to analyze the politics of academic achievement. La Asociación Latina Alcanzando Sueños (ALAS), a 12-year dual language program and its engaged research practices with the Academy of the Americas (Detroit), and Pipiolo Elementary (Mexico) supported by the American Go Foundation, are analyzed as a transnational community-based effort to discover ruptures that permit achievement. This research uses home ethnography and critical intersubjectively engaged methods. Home ethnography uses the researcher as principal informant in her academic communities. Intersubjectively-engaged methods involves the exchange of experiences, feelings and ideas among research participants. Freirean educational, postcolonial and feminist theories are used to stress a critical awareness that leads to social action. The interweaving of participant and authorial voices in the analysis is used to neutralize power imbalances. The findings reveal that a critical intersubjectively-engaged research extends the agency of participants from a limited to a systemic understanding of educational oppression. In this process of inclusion, subjugating discourses (e.g. No Child Left Behind Act and discourses on Diversity), which appear to be emancipatory, are demystified. The development of critical awareness among community interviewers and the possibility for action and transnational network formation are examined. A central contribution of this study is understanding the emancipatory power of the participant voices, which through their interwoven presence disrupt my own authorial power and our complicitous hegemonic discourses of oppression. The study recommends that engaged anthropology, emancipatory social work and universities prioritize a critical education infused with praxis at all levels beginning in their institutional homes. The study further suggests overcoming overly simplistic binary oppositions that are used to marginalize large segments of our population and other potentially emancipatory disciplines. Long-term mentorship and cultural validation are central to this transformative process.Ph.D.Social Work and AnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89690/1/matos_1.pd

Excessive Daytime Sleepiness Is Associated with Changes in Salivary Inflammatory Genes Transcripts

Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a ubiquitous problem that affects public health and safety. A test that can reliably identify individuals that suffer from EDS is needed. In contrast to other methods, salivary biomarkers are an objective, inexpensive, and noninvasive method to identify individuals with inadequate sleep. Although we have previously shown that inflammatory genes are elevated in saliva samples taken from sleep deprived individuals, it is unclear if inflammatory genes will be elevated in clinical populations with EDS. In this study, salivary samples from individuals with sleep apnea were evaluated using the Taqman low density inflammation array. Transcript levels for 3 genes, including prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2), were elevated in patients with sleep apnea. Interestingly, PTGS2 was also elevated in patients with EDS but who did not have sleep apnea. These data demonstrate the feasibility of using salivary transcript levels to identify individuals that self-report excessive daytime sleepiness

A patient with an uncommon complication from insertion of a central venous catheter: A case report

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Measuring the impact of apnea and obesity on circadian activity patterns using functional linear modeling of actigraphy data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Actigraphy provides a way to objectively measure activity in human subjects. This paper describes a novel family of statistical methods that can be used to analyze this data in a more comprehensive way.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A statistical method for testing differences in activity patterns measured by actigraphy across subgroups using functional data analysis is described. For illustration this method is used to statistically assess the impact of apnea-hypopnea index (apnea) and body mass index (BMI) on circadian activity patterns measured using actigraphy in 395 participants from 18 to 80 years old, referred to the Washington University Sleep Medicine Center for general sleep medicine care. Mathematical descriptions of the methods and results from their application to real data are presented.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Activity patterns were recorded by an Actical device (Philips Respironics Inc.) every minute for at least seven days. Functional linear modeling was used to detect the association between circadian activity patterns and apnea and BMI. Results indicate that participants in high apnea group have statistically lower activity during the day, and that BMI in our study population does not significantly impact circadian patterns.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Compared with analysis using summary measures (e.g., average activity over 24 hours, total sleep time), Functional Data Analysis (FDA) is a novel statistical framework that more efficiently analyzes information from actigraphy data. FDA has the potential to reposition the focus of actigraphy data from general sleep assessment to rigorous analyses of circadian activity rhythms.</p

Increased Ventricular Premature Contraction Frequency During REM Sleep in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Background Patients with obstructive sleep apnea are reported to have a peak of sudden cardiac death at night, in contrast to patients without apnea whose peak is in the morning. We hypothesized that ventricular premature contraction (VPC) frequency would correlate with measures of apnea and sympathetic activity.Methods Electrocardiograms from a sleep study of 125 patients with coronary artery disease were evaluated. Patients were categorized by apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) into Moderate (AHI <15) or Severe (AHI>15) apnea groups. Sleep stages studied were Wake, S1, S2, S34, and rapid eye movement (REM). Parameters of a potent autonomically-based risk predictor for sudden cardiac death called heart rate turbulence were calculated.Results There were 74 Moderate and 51 Severe obstructive sleep apnea patients. VPC frequency was affected significantly by sleep stage (Wake, S2 and REM, F=5.8, p<.005) and by AHI (F=8.7, p<.005). In Severe apnea patients, VPC frequency was higher in REM than in Wake (p=.011). In contrast, patients with Moderate apnea had fewer VPCs and exhibited no sleep stage dependence (p=.19). Oxygen desaturation duration per apnea episode correlated positively with AHI (r2=.71, p<.0001), and was longer in REM than in non-REM (p<.0001). The heart rate turbulence parameter TS correlated negatively with oxygen desaturation duration in REM (r2=.06, p=.014).Conclusions Higher VPC frequency coupled with higher sympathetic activity caused by longer apnea episodes in REM sleep may be one reason for increased nocturnal death in apneic patients

High-resolution underwater robotic vision-based mapping and three-dimensional reconstruction for archaeology

Documenting underwater archaeological sites is an extremely challenging problem. Sites covering large areas are particularly daunting for traditional techniques. In this paper, we present a novel approach to this problem using both an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and a diver-controlled stereo imaging platform to document the submerged Bronze Age city at Pavlopetri, Greece. The result is a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction covering 26,600 m2 at a resolution of 2 mm/pixel, the largest-scale underwater optical 3D map, at such a resolution, in the world to date. We discuss the advances necessary to achieve this result, including i) an approach to color correct large numbers of images at varying altitudes and over varying bottom types; ii) a large-scale bundle adjustment framework that is capable of handling upward of 400,000 stereo images; and iii) a novel approach to the registration and rapid documentation of an underwater excavations area that can quickly produce maps of site change. We present visual and quantitative comparisons to the authors' previous underwater mapping approaches

Predicting Visibility of Aircraft

Visual detection of aircraft by human observers is an important element of aviation safety. To assess and ensure safety, it would be useful to be able to be able to predict the visibility, to a human observer, of an aircraft of specified size, shape, distance, and coloration. Examples include assuring safe separation among aircraft and between aircraft and unmanned vehicles, design of airport control towers, and efforts to enhance or suppress the visibility of military and rescue vehicles. We have recently developed a simple metric of pattern visibility, the Spatial Standard Observer (SSO). In this report we examine whether the SSO can predict visibility of simulated aircraft images. We constructed a set of aircraft images from three-dimensional computer graphic models, and measured the luminance contrast threshold for each image from three human observers. The data were well predicted by the SSO. Finally, we show how to use the SSO to predict visibility range for aircraft of arbitrary size, shape, distance, and coloration