Browsing images using broad classification categories

Browsing can serve an important role as a strategy for retrieving image information and can allow users to recognize what they are looking for more easily than describing it. This article describes a project which developed and tested an art history image data base which used broad classification units to group image sets into meaningful categories that support browsing. Categories from the Art and Architecture Thesaurus were used to provide broad classification units to guide users in browsing and searching. The system provided both browse and search capabilities and was tested with art history specialists and generalist users. The type of user and the use to which the image is put will influence the type of search strategy employed. Preferences for, and perfonnance in, the browse and search modes varied according to the user's familiarity with the subject domain. Both sets of users felt that the ability to use both browse and search in a multimodal system would best meet their search needs

Building a (self) reflective muscle in diverse first year law students

Research relating to the development of law students’ professional identity has long recognised that, as a student develops their identity as part of a profession, as well as their academic identity, they need to develop an ethical muscle. At its foundation, this means that rather than focussing on identifying individual ethical issues, people need to practice how to deal with ethical issues within a workplace through gaining a range of skills. It is a practice-based approach to dealing with ethical issues. In addition to the idea of an ethical muscle, others have proposed that students and lawyers need to develop a ‘reflective muscle’. A ‘reflective muscle’ is a term used by Leering to encapsulate the importance of teaching students and legal practitioners to engage regularly in reflection to improve their competence through reflection on practice, and learning from practice. While Leering is the first to use this term, the recognition of the importance of reflection skills is broadly acknowledged as being essential for legal practitioners so that they can continuously build their skills and understandings of the law, legal system and their role within it. Self-reflection, a form of personal reflection that asks students to question themselves, their actions, and behaviours, is an important self-management tool for both law students and lawyers. The development of a self-reflective muscle is particularly important for ‘diverse’ students as they transition to law school. These students are commonly described in the academic literature as ‘non-traditional’ or ‘non-standard’ students, 6 usually because they do not fit the profile of a ‘traditional student’; one who has entered university directly from high school, and whose sociocultural background means that they are more familiar with the implicit norms of university culture

Valuing diverse students : an ethical response to building success in first-year law students and broadening the legal profession

Currently, most legal professions are not representative of the communities which they serve. They do not proportionally include diverse members of the community, nor ensure there are diverse practitioners represented in all areas of practice and at senior levels. This impacts on access to justice, a key premise of the law and legal system. One step to make the legal profession more diverse is for law schools to ensure that diverse law students are both admitted and enabled to succeed in their law degrees. While transition to university by diverse students has been analysed over the last 20 years, there remains a disjunct, with students’ cultural capital not being recognised, and students being expected to assimilate into the university, rather than their law studies moulding around them. Using a theoretical model of ‘transition as becoming’, this article analyses first-year law students at Western Sydney University Australia and their responses to a reflection survey. The study identified three key factors which enhance diverse law students’ success: recognising the family, work and caring responsibilities of students; enhancing peer support; and making study expectations explicit. In this way, the curriculum can become a vehicle for ensuring successful transition to law study by diverse students

Health representations, perceived valence, and concept associations for symbols as food cues: A mixed-methods approach

Researchers have experimented with a range of point-of-purchase (PoP) interventions in supermarkets, restaurants, and cafeterias. In general, these interventions have employed written materials. This research tested symbols to visually summarize information about the (un)healthiness of food. Study one explored health representations and valence associated with the image of a heart, a bathroom scale, and a running shoe using qualitative field interviews (N = 1200). Study two explored accessibility of a priori concept associations for two of those images, stratified by valence, in a computerized response latency task (N = 40). Study one indicted that the heart was best linked to its intended theme "heart health." Concerning valence, the heart was seen as both positive and negative whereas the scale was less likely to be viewed as positive relative to the running shoe. In study two, the heart was linked to five of the six a priori concepts and there was evidence that three of these were more accessible. Overall, the heart was better linked to positive poles than negative ones. A heart symbol may be useful to prompt heart healthy choices at the PoP. There was evidence that a scale may bias choice away from undesirable foods

Solving the conundrum of intra-specific variation in metabolic rate: A multidisciplinary conceptual and methodological toolkit

Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in COVID-19.

Host-mediated lung inflammation is present1, and drives mortality2, in the critical illness caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Host genetic variants associated with critical illness may identify mechanistic targets for therapeutic development3. Here we report the results of the GenOMICC (Genetics Of Mortality In Critical Care) genome-wide association study in 2,244 critically ill patients with COVID-19 from 208 UK intensive care units. We have identified and replicated the following new genome-wide significant associations: on chromosome 12q24.13 (rs10735079, P = 1.65 × 10-8) in a gene cluster that encodes antiviral restriction enzyme activators (OAS1, OAS2 and OAS3); on chromosome 19p13.2 (rs74956615, P = 2.3 × 10-8) near the gene that encodes tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2); on chromosome 19p13.3 (rs2109069, P = 3.98 ×  10-12) within the gene that encodes dipeptidyl peptidase 9 (DPP9); and on chromosome 21q22.1 (rs2236757, P = 4.99 × 10-8) in the interferon receptor gene IFNAR2. We identified potential targets for repurposing of licensed medications: using Mendelian randomization, we found evidence that low expression of IFNAR2, or high expression of TYK2, are associated with life-threatening disease; and transcriptome-wide association in lung tissue revealed that high expression of the monocyte-macrophage chemotactic receptor CCR2 is associated with severe COVID-19. Our results identify robust genetic signals relating to key host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage in COVID-19. Both mechanisms may be amenable to targeted treatment with existing drugs. However, large-scale randomized clinical trials will be essential before any change to clinical practice

Transport of endosomal early antigen 1 in the rat sciatic nerve and location in cultured neurons

Early endosomal antigen I (EEAI) is known to be a marker of early endosomes and in cultured hippocampal neurons it preferentially localizes to the dendritic but not the axonal compartment. We show in cultured dorsal root ganglia and superior cervical ganglia neurons that EEAI localizes to the cell bodies and the neurites of both sensory and sympathetic neurons. We then show in vivo using a ligated rat sciatic nerve that EEAI significantly accumulates on the proximal side and not on the distal side of the ligation. This suggests that EEAI is transported in the anterograde direction in axons either as part of the homeostatic process or to the nerve ligation site in response to nerve injury

Alterations in ciliary neurotrophic factor signaling in rapsyn deficient mice

Rapsyn is a key molecule involved in the formation of postsynaptic specializations at the neuromuscular junction, in its absence there are both pre- and post-synaptic deficits including failure to cluster acetylcholine receptors. Recently we have documented increases in both nerve-muscle branching and numbers of motoneurons, suggesting alterations in skeletal muscle derived trophic support for motoneurons. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the contribution of target derived trophic factors to increases in motoneuron branching and number, in rapsyn deficient mice that had their postsynaptic specializations disrupted. We have used reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blot to document the expression of known trophic factors and their receptors in muscle, during the period of synapse formation in rapsyn deficient mouse embryos. We found that the mRNA levels for ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) was decreased in the rapsyn deficient muscles compared with litter mate controls although those for NGF, BDNF, NT-3 and TGF-β2 did not differ. We found that both the mRNA and the protein expression for suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) decreased although janus kinase 2 (JAK2) did not change in the rapsyn deficient muscles compared with litter mate controls. These results suggest that failure to form postsynaptic specializations in rapsyn deficient mice has altered the CNTF cytokine signaling pathway within skeletal muscle, the target for motoneurons. This alteration may in part, account for the increased muscle nerve branching and motoneuron survival seen in rapsyn deficient mice

Browse and Search Patterns in a Digital Image Database

A prototype image retrieval system with browse and search capabilities was developed to investigate patterns of searching a collection of digital visual images, as well as factors, such as image size, resolution, and download speed, which affect browsing. The subject populations were art history specialists and non-specialists. Through focus group interviews, a controlled test, post-test interviews and an online survey, data was gathered to compare preferences and actual patterns of use in browsing and searching. While specialists preferred direct search to browsing, and generalists used browsing as their preferred mode, both user groups found each mode to play a role depending on information need, and found value in a system combining both browse and direct search. There were no significant differences in performance among the search modes of browse, search, and combined browse/search models when the quasi-controlled study tested the different modes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45984/1/10791_2004_Article_252664.pd