Digital audio, video, images, and documents are flying through cyberspace to their respective owners. Unfortunately, along the way, individuals may choose to intervene and take this content for ...themselves. Digital watermarking and steganography technology greatly reduces the instances of this by limiting or eliminating the ability of third parties to decipher the content that he has taken. The many techiniques of digital watermarking (embedding a code) and steganography (hiding information) continue to evolve as applications that necessitate them do the same. The authors of this second edition provide an update on the framework for applying these techniques that they provided researchers and professionals in the first well-received edition. Steganography and steganalysis (the art of detecting hidden information) have been added to a robust treatment of digital watermarking, as many in each field research and deal with the other. New material includes watermarking with side information, QIM, and dirty-paper codes. The revision and inclusion of new material by these influential authors has created a must-own book for anyone in this profession. * This new edition now contains essential information on steganalysis and steganography * New concepts and new applications including QIM introduced * Digital watermark embedding is given a complete update with new processes and applications
Panchromatic observations of the best candidate hyperluminous infrared galaxies from the widest Herschel extragalactic imaging survey have led to the discovery of at least four intrinsically luminous ...z = 2.41 galaxies across an approximately 100 kpc region-a cluster of starbursting protoellipticals. Via subarcsecond interferometric imaging we have measured accurate gas and star formation surface densities. The two brightest galaxies span ~3 kpc FWHM in submillimeter/radio continuum and CO J = 4-3, and double that in CO J = 1-0. The broad CO line is due partly to the multitude of constituent galaxies and partly to large rotational velocities in two counter-rotating gas disks-a scenario predicted to lead to the most intense starbursts, which will therefore come in pairs. The disks have M sub(dyn) of several x 10 super(11) M sub(middot in circle) and gas fractions of ~40%. Velocity dispersions are modest so the disks are unstable, potentially on scales commensurate with their radii: these galaxies are undergoing extreme bursts of star formation, not confined to their nuclei, at close to the Eddington limit. Their specific star formation rates place them gap 5x above the main sequence, which supposedly comprises large gas disks like these. Their high star formation efficiencies are difficult to reconcile with a simple volumetric star formation law. N-body and dark matter simulations suggest that this system is the progenitor of a B(inary)-type gap 10 super(14.6)-M sub(mid dot in circle) cluster.
Inland lakes, important water resources, play a crucial role in the global water cycle and are sensitive to climate change and human activities. There clearly is a pressing need to understand ...temporal and spatial variations of lakes at global and continental scales. The recent operation of Landsat 8 extends the unprecedented Landsat record to over 40years, allowing long-term, large-scale lake dynamics mapping at high resolutions. Using our circa-2000 lake product derived from Landsat 7 images as a reference, this research produces a circa-2015 map of representative lake extents and distributions, and addresses seasonal and inter-annual lake area variability using Landsat 8 images acquired in lake stable seasons at a continental scale. Oceania is chosen here as a case study as it contains a large group of salt lakes that exhibit high area variability and has the most intensive image coverage during the first 2.5-year operation of Landsat 8. Accordingly, this paper describes an adaptive algorithm to automate lake mapping for various surface conditions using images acquired during lake stable seasons and a compositing scheme in the vector domain to generate a representative continental mosaic of lake extents from multi-temporal mapping. Our results demonstrate that these strategies and methods produce a highly reliable and representative composite of highly-variable lake extents across Oceania, and are potentially applicable to other large-scale lake mapping projects using multi-temporal data.
•Continental-scale circa-2015 lake map using ~3300 Landsat 8 images•First effort addressing seasonal variability in Landsat 8 continental lake mapping•The compositing scheme can reduce seasonal variability and cloud contamination.•Proposed procedures can reduce manual workload in the sequent QA/QC process.•The proposed strategies and methods are readily applicable to other continents.
Assembly of the Mycobacterial Cell Wall Jankute, Monika; Cox, Jonathan A.G; Harrison, James ...
Annual review of microbiology,
10/2015, Letnik:
69, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
remains one of the most successful bacterial pathogens, claiming over 1.3 million lives worldwide in 2013. The emergence of multidrug-resistant and extensively ...drug-resistant isolates has prompted the need for new drugs and drug targets.
M. tuberculosis
possesses an unusual cell wall dominated by lipids and carbohydrates that provides a permeability barrier against hydrophilic drugs and is crucial for its survival and virulence. This large macromolecular structure, termed the mycolyl-arabinogalactan-peptidoglycan complex, and the phosphatidyl-
myo
-inositol-based lipoglycans are key features of the mycobacterial cell wall. Assembly of these cell wall components is an attractive target for the development of chemotherapeutics against tuberculosis. Herein, we focus on recent biochemical and molecular insights into these complex molecules of
M. tuberculosis
cell wall.
The sedimentology of coastal boulder deposits (CBD) is little known. These deposits, and especially the largest clasts within them—which commonly weigh many 10s of tonnes—are of increasing interest ...because they attest to extreme energy wave events acting well above the high-tide mark (in some cases >40m above high water and >100m inland). Recent observations have made clear that storm waves (rather than tsunami) are important in both creating and activating these deposits; but beyond that we know little about their hydrodynamics, or the relative frequency of boulder movement, and how this might vary with topographic setting.
Roundness is a first-order characteristic that preserves a record of deposit reworking. It can tell us whether clasts move around much after they have been created from bedrock, or whether they are emplaced into CBD with little or no subsequent transport. But because roundness has historically been difficult to measure, most roundness estimates in the literature are based on qualitative visual assessment, and are therefore of limited analytical value. Fully reproducible roundness measurements are possible, however, and in the case of boulders they can be acquired quite easily using the Kirkbride (2005) device in combination with a trigonometric formula presented here.
CBD at locations in Ireland and Scotland provide a test case, demonstrating the utility of quantitative boulder roundness measurements. The 567 clasts we measured are generally angular, but a substantial proportion shows some degree of rounding. Most importantly, there are demonstrable, consistent patterns relating topography and roundness. There is a strong and unsurprising inverse correlation between clast roundness and deposit elevation. There is no first-order relationship between roundness and inland distance, but there is a power-law inverse relationship between rounding and steepness (ratio of elevation to distance inland). The greatest degree of rounding is found in CBD located at the back of gentle coastal platforms with gradual slopes. These relationships provide new insights into CBD sedimentology, which we hope will be probed and tested in future studies.
Display omitted
Objectives To investigate the association between antidepressant treatment and risk of several potential adverse outcomes in older people with depression and to examine risks by class of ...antidepressant, duration of use, and dose.Design Cohort study of people aged 65 and over diagnosed as having depression.Setting 570 general practices in the United Kingdom supplying data to the QResearch primary care database.Participants 60 746 patients diagnosed as having a new episode of depression between the ages of 65 and 100 years from 1 January 1996 to 31 December 2007 and followed up until 31 December 2008.Main outcome measures Hazard ratios associated with antidepressant use for all cause mortality, attempted suicide/self harm, myocardial infarction, stroke/transient ischaemic attack, falls, fractures, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, epilepsy/seizures, road traffic accidents, adverse drug reactions, and hyponatraemia, adjusted for a range of potential confounding variables. Hazard ratios were calculated for antidepressant class (tricyclic and related antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, other antidepressants), dose, and duration of use and for commonly prescribed individual drugs.Results 54 038 (89.0%) patients received at least one prescription for an antidepressant during follow-up. A total of 1 398 359 antidepressant prescriptions were issued: 764 659 (54.7%) for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, 442 192 (31.6%) for tricyclic antidepressants, 2203 (0.2%) for monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and 189 305 (13.5%) for the group of other antidepressants. The associations with the adverse outcomes differed significantly between the antidepressant classes for seven outcomes. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were associated with the highest adjusted hazard ratios for falls (1.66, 95% confidence interval 1.58 to 1.73) and hyponatraemia (1.52, 1.33 to 1.75) compared with when antidepressants were not being used. The group of other antidepressants was associated with the highest adjusted hazard ratios for all cause mortality (1.66, 1.56 to 1.77), attempted suicide/self harm (5.16, 3.90 to 6.83), stroke/transient ischaemic attack (1.37, 1.22 to 1.55), fracture (1.64, 1.46 to 1.84), and epilepsy/seizures (2.24, 1.60 to 3.15), compared with when antidepressants were not being used. Tricyclic antidepressants did not have the highest hazard ratio for any of the outcomes. Significantly different associations also existed between the individual drugs for the same seven outcomes; trazodone (tricyclic antidepressant), mirtazapine, and venlafaxine (both in the group of other antidepressants) were associated with the highest rates for some of these outcomes. Absolute risks over 1 year for all cause mortality were 7.04% for patients while not taking antidepressants, 8.12% for those taking tricyclic antidepressants, 10.61% for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and 11.43% for other antidepressants.Conclusions Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and drugs in the group of other antidepressants were associated with an increased risk of several adverse outcomes compared with tricyclic antidepressants. Among individual drugs, trazodone, mirtazapine, and venlafaxine were associated with the highest risks for some outcomes. As this is an observational study, it is susceptible to confounding by indication, channelling bias, and residual confounding, so differences in characteristics between patients prescribed different antidepressant drugs that could account for some of the associations between the drugs and the adverse outcomes may remain. Further research is needed to confirm these findings, but the risks and benefits of different antidepressants should be carefully evaluated when these drugs are prescribed to older people.
We developed a multi-faceted prejudice habit-breaking intervention to produce long-term reductions in implicit race bias. The intervention is based on the premise that implicit bias is like a habit ...that can be broken through a combination of awareness of implicit bias, concern about the effects of that bias, and the application of strategies to reduce bias. In a 12-week longitudinal study, people who received the intervention showed dramatic reductions in implicit race bias. People who were concerned about discrimination or who reported using the strategies showed the greatest reductions. The intervention also led to increases in concern about discrimination and personal awareness of bias over the duration of the study. People in the control group showed none of the above effects. Our results raise the hope of reducing persistent and unintentional forms of discrimination that arise from implicit bias.
► We developed an intervention to produce long-term reductions in implicit race bias. ► The intervention produced reductions in implicit bias that lasted up to 8 weeks. ► The intervention also increased awareness of bias and concern about discrimination. ► Our results raise the hope of reducing the pernicious effects of implicit race bias.
Summary These guidelines for the management of cutaneous melanoma present an evidence-based guidance for treatment, with identification of the strength of evidence available at the time of ...preparation of the guidelines, and a brief overview of epidemiology, diagnosis, investigation, and follow-up.
Preeclampsia (PE) is a life-threatening hypertensive pathology of pregnancy affecting 3-5% of all pregnancies. To date, PE has no cure, early detection markers, or effective treatments short of the ...removal of what is thought to be the causative organ, the placenta, which may necessitate a preterm delivery. Additionally, numerous small placental microarray studies attempting to identify "PE-specific" genes have yielded inconsistent results. We therefore hypothesize that preeclampsia is a multifactorial disease encompassing several pathology subclasses, and that large cohort placental gene expression analysis will reveal these groups.
To address our hypothesis, we utilized known bioinformatic methods to aggregate 7 microarray data sets across multiple platforms in order to generate a large data set of 173 patient samples, including 77 with preeclampsia. Unsupervised clustering of these patient samples revealed three distinct molecular subclasses of PE. This included a "canonical" PE subclass demonstrating elevated expression of known PE markers and genes associated with poor oxygenation and increased secretion, as well as two other subclasses potentially representing a poor maternal response to pregnancy and an immunological presentation of preeclampsia.
Our analysis sheds new light on the heterogeneity of PE patients, and offers up additional avenues for future investigation. Hopefully, our subclassification of preeclampsia based on molecular diversity will finally lead to the development of robust diagnostics and patient-based treatments for this disorder.
Background
The present interdisciplinary consensus review proposes clinical considerations and recommendations for anaesthetic practice in patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery with an ...Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) programme.
Methods
Studies were selected with particular attention being paid to meta‐analyses, randomized controlled trials and large prospective cohort studies. For each item of the perioperative treatment pathway, available English‐language literature was examined and reviewed. The group reached a consensus recommendation after critical appraisal of the literature.
Results
This consensus statement demonstrates that anaesthesiologists control several preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative ERAS elements. Further research is needed to verify the strength of these recommendations.
Conclusions
Based on the evidence available for each element of perioperative care pathways, the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS ®) Society presents a comprehensive consensus review, clinical considerations and recommendations for anaesthesia care in patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery within an ERAS programme. This unified protocol facilitates involvement of anaesthesiologists in the implementation of the ERAS programmes and allows for comparison between centres and it eventually might facilitate the design of multi‐institutional prospective and adequately powered randomized trials.
PDF
