1,291 research outputs found
It's OK not to be OK: Shared Reflections from two PhD Parents in a Time of Pandemic
Adopting an intersectional feminist lens, we explore our identities as single and coâparents thrust into the new reality of the UK COVIDâ19 lockdown. As two PhD students, we present shared reflections on our intersectional and divergent experiences of parenting and our attempts to protect our work and families during a pandemic. We reflect on the social constructions of âmasculinitiesâ and âemphasized femininitiesâ as complicated influence on our roles as parents. Finally, we highlight the importance of time and selfâcare as ways of managing our shared realities during this uncertain period. Through sharing reflections, we became closer friends in mutual appreciation and solidarity as we learned about each otherâs struggles and vulnerabilities
Dealing with inaccurate face detection for automatic gender recognition with partially occluded faces
Gender recognition problem has not been extensively studied in situations where the face cannot be accurately detected and it also can be partially occluded. In this contribution, a comparison of several
characterisation methods of the face is presented and they are evaluated in four different experiments that simulate the previous scenario. Two of the characterization techniques are based on histograms, LBP and local contrast values, and the other one is a new kind of features, called Ranking Labels, that provide spatial information. Experiments have proved Ranking Labels description is the most reliable in inaccurate situation
Measurements and Variability of Arterial Blood Pressure and Heart Interval in Conscious and Anesthetized Dogs
No abstract availabl
MinMax Radon Barcodes for Medical Image Retrieval
Content-based medical image retrieval can support diagnostic decisions by
clinical experts. Examining similar images may provide clues to the expert to
remove uncertainties in his/her final diagnosis. Beyond conventional feature
descriptors, binary features in different ways have been recently proposed to
encode the image content. A recent proposal is "Radon barcodes" that employ
binarized Radon projections to tag/annotate medical images with content-based
binary vectors, called barcodes. In this paper, MinMax Radon barcodes are
introduced which are superior to "local thresholding" scheme suggested in the
literature. Using IRMA dataset with 14,410 x-ray images from 193 different
classes, the advantage of using MinMax Radon barcodes over \emph{thresholded}
Radon barcodes are demonstrated. The retrieval error for direct search drops by
more than 15\%. As well, SURF, as a well-established non-binary approach, and
BRISK, as a recent binary method are examined to compare their results with
MinMax Radon barcodes when retrieving images from IRMA dataset. The results
demonstrate that MinMax Radon barcodes are faster and more accurate when
applied on IRMA images.Comment: To appear in proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on
Visual Computing, December 12-14, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada, US
Chelidonium majus L. incorporated emulsion electrospun PCL/PVA_PEC nanofibrous meshes for antibacterial wound dressing applications
Presently, there are many different types of wound dressings available on the market. Nonetheless, there is still a great interest to improve the performance and efficiency of these materials. Concerning that, new dressing materials containing natural products, such as medicinal plants that protect the wound from infections but also enhance skin regeneration have been or are being developed. Herein, we used for the first time a needleless emulsion electrospinning technique for incorporating Chelidoniummajus L. (C. majus), a medicinal plant widely known for its traditional therapeutic properties, in Polycaprolactone (PCL)/Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA)_Pectin (PEC) nanofibrous meshes. Moreover, the potential use of these electrospun nanofibers as a carrier for C. majus was also explored. The results obtained revealed that the produced PCL/PVA_PEC nanofibrous meshes containing C. majus extract displayed morphological characteristics similar to the natural extracellular matrix of the skin (ECM). Furthermore, the produced meshes showed beneficial properties to support the healing process. Additionally, the C. majus-loaded PCL/PVA_PEC nanofibrous meshes inhibited Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) growth, reaching a 3.82 Log reduction, and showed to be useful for controlled release, without causing any cytotoxic effect on the normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) cells. Hence, these findings suggest the promising suitability of this novel wound dressing material for prevention and treatment of bacterial wound infections.The authors are also grateful for the funding support given by FibEnTech Research Unit
(Project UIDB/00195/2020). ClĂĄudia Mouro acknowledges a PhD fellowship from the Foundation
for Science and Technology (FCT) (PD/BD/113550/2015)
Physioacoustic therapy: placebo effect on recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage
We evaluated claims that physioacoustic therapy can enhance muscle healing following damaging exercise. Untrained subjects were randomly assigned to control (C), placebo (P) or treatment (T) groups. All groups performed 70 eccentric triceps contractions followed by; no treatment (C), sham physioacoustic treatment (P), or actual physioacoustic therapy (T) on days 1â4 post-exercise. Muscle soreness and isometric and concentric triceps peak torque were determined pre-exerciseand on days 1â4 and 7 post-exercise. The T group received physioacoustic therapy for 30 min/day on the treatment days. The P group believed they received physioacoustic therapy, although the chairs were turned off. Peak torques were depressed (P < 0.05) on days 1â3 in all groups and returned to pre-exercise values by days 4â7 in both P and T groups. C group peak torques remained depressed (P < 0.05) through day 7. Soreness was elevated (P < 0.05) in all groups on days 1â2 post-exercise. P and T groups reported no soreness by day 3 while the C group remained sore (P < 0.05) through days 3â4. The T group recovered soreness and force faster than C but at a similar rate to the P group. The effectiveness of physioacoustic therapy in enhancing post-exercise muscle healing may be attributable to a placebo effect
Strong Coupling Corrections to the Ginzburg-Landau Theory of Superfluid ^{3}He
In the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superfluid He, the free energy is
expressed as an expansion of invariants of a complex order parameter. Strong
coupling effects, which increase with increasing pressure, are embodied in the
set of coefficients of these order parameter invariants\cite{Leg75,Thu87}.
Experiments can be used to determine four independent combinations of the
coefficients of the five fourth order invariants. This leaves the
phenomenological description of the thermodynamics near incomplete.
Theoretical understanding of these coefficients is also quite limited. We
analyze our measurements of the magnetic susceptibility and the NMR frequency
shift in the -phase which refine the four experimental inputs to the
phenomenological theory. We propose a model based on existing experiments,
combined with calculations by Sauls and Serene\cite{Sau81} of the pressure
dependence of these coefficients, in order to determine all five fourth order
terms. This model leads us to a better understanding of the thermodynamics of
superfluid He in its various states. We discuss the surface tension of
bulk superfluid He and predictions for novel states of the superfluid
such as those that are stabilized by elastic scattering of quasiparticles from
a highly porous silica aerogel.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
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