This article scrutinizes the analogy between modern project management theory and Sunzi Art of War (or “Sunzi” for short in this abstract) by comparing and contrasting them and identifying the ...similarities and dissimilarities between them. It is revealed that similarities overwhelmingly exceed dissimilarities at least by the numbers of ideas in the two philosophies. To be specific, Sunzi’s decision on war versus no war is comparable to modern project selection, both being worth prior rigorous contemplation and thus analysis. Sunzi’s analysis is analogous to key success factor (KSF) analysis or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis commonly adopted in modern project management. Sunzi reiterates the criticality of performing analysis prior to any warfare in the same way as modern project management accentuates analysis for the purpose of project selection. Sunzi analyzes war in a quantified manner somewhat akin to the cost-benefit analysis commonly employed in modern project selection. Sunzi assumes the increase of fixed costs with time just as modern project management does. Sunzi’s practice of “team building” resembles modern project management’s. Sunzi regards victory in war as the objective of top priority in a way similar to defining project objectives and establishing project priorities in modern project management. Sunzi pays heed to the satisfaction and other psychological statuses of the soldiers as much as modern project management does. Sunzi prefers to fight wars only after conducting thorough analysis to predict favorable outcomes of the wars, whereas modern project managers likewise would proceed with any projects only after performing systematic analysis for project selection to predict favorable outcomes. Sunzi believes in managing the military by means of the rule of law and discipline, which modern project management is premised on. Sunzi contends that everything in war has to be measured, estimated, calculated, and probability-based, which is exactly the kind of positivism and scientific approaches upheld by modern project management. Having said this, Sunzi’s insistence on “doing it right once” disagrees with a few modern project management methodologies. Also, the approaches to implement the ideas differ between the two philosophies.
Eutypella parasitica R.W. Davidson and R.C. Lorenz is the causative agent of Eutypella canker of maple, a destructive disease of maples in Europe and North America. The fungus E. parasitica infects ...the trunk through a branch stub or bark wound. Because the fungal community may have an impact on infection and colonization by E. parasitica, the composition of fungi colonizing wood of dead branches of sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) was investigated in five sampling sites in Slovenia. Forty samples from each sampling site were collected between the November 2017 and March 2018 period. Isolations were made from the wood in the outer part of dead branches and from discoloured wood in the trunk that originated from a dead branch. Pure cultures were divided into morphotypes, and one representative culture per morphotype was selected for further molecular identification. From a total of 2700 cultured subsamples, 1744 fungal cultures were obtained, which were grouped into 212 morphotypes. The investigated samples were colonized by a broad spectrum of fungi. The most frequently isolated species were Eutypa maura (Fr.) Sacc., Eutypa sp. Tul. and C. Tul., Fusarium avenaceum (Fr.) Sacc., Neocucurbitaria acerina Wanas., Camporesi, E.B.G. Jones and K.D. Hyde and E. parasitica. In this study, we distinguished species diversity and the fungal community. There were no significant differences in the diversity of fungal species between the five sampling sites, and branch thickness did not prove to be a statistically significant factor in fungal species diversity. Nevertheless, relatively low Jaccard similarity index values suggested possible differences in the fungal communities from different sampling sites. This was confirmed by an analysis of similarities, which showed that the isolated fungal community distinctly differed between the five sampling sites and between the different isolation sources. Eutypella parasitica was isolated from all five investigated sampling sites, although Eutypella cankers were observed in only three sampling sites, indicating the possibility of asymptomatic infection.
Weakly-supervised video anomaly detection is typically formulated as a multi-instance learning problem, assigning anomaly scores to each video snippet by learning to rank with only video-level ...labels. However, previous approaches that rely on snippet-level embeddings generated by task-agnostic feature extractors inevitably encounter challenges such as intra-bag similarities and frame-level entanglement. As a result, the model may exhibit significant performance degradation, particularly when the target is looming or receding. To address these issues, we present a novel weakly-supervised hierarchical position-scale awareness model that incorporates heterogeneous cross-scale correlation learning to improve detection performance. Specifically, in addition to snippet-level embedding, we employ an object detector (e.g., YOLOv5) for frame-level target detection and perform normal target clustering. By introducing a hierarchical ranking strategy, we gradually disentangle potential anomaly targets from the frame to the snippet level. Subsequently, we design a simple yet efficient position-scale awareness inference method that predicts the spatial positions and scales of looming and receding targets based on the abnormal targets with high confidence in adjacent snippets. Furthermore, we introduce heterogeneous cross-scale correlation learning to acquire the correlation between targets and snippet embeddings, enabling our model to increase attention to anomaly-related targets. Compared to previous approaches that generate only anomaly scores for each snippet, our method can locate anomalous targets, making it more suitable for practical applications. Without bells and whistles, evaluations on commonly-used VAD benchmarks: ShanghaiTech, UCSD-Ped2, Avenue, UCF-Crime and UBnormal datasets show that our method yields competitive and highly promising results compared with existing unsupervised, self-supervised, and weakly-supervised competitors. The code will be made publicly available.
•Intro of WS-HPSA: Hierarchical model tackles bag similarity in abnormal videos.•Abnormal target inference: Predict positions/scales in adjacent snippets.•HCCL proposal: Captures correlations between frame-level targets and snippet embeddings.•WS-HPSA advantages: Detailed anomaly score and visual info, surpassing existing WS-VADs.
Chavacano was the product of early Spanish colonization. It was able to adapt to the dynamic of the Philippine culture for centuries. Then, it later became a separate language spoken mostly in Cavite ...and Zamboanga Peninsula. This study was exploratory research that contextualize the ease of learning Spanish language based on linguistic, cultural, and emotional domains. Eight students who are native Chavacano speakers in Zamboanga City were interviewed for the study. The findings indicated that the close resemblance of lexical and phonological components of Chavacano to Spanish influenced the learning of the native speakers. Cognates played an essential role in cognition and interpreting basic words from Spanish to simpler ideas in Chavacano. Cognition guessing was determined to be a major contributor to language learning for orthographies. For native Chavacano speakers, cognition guessing was a mechanism for language learning in Spanish where learners happened to deduce the meaning of a word by comparing it to a language they know. Additionally, social-cultural relatedness between Chavacano and Spanish mediated the learning in certain manner. Learners were able to emotionally relate themselves to the culture of their target language which in turn influenced language transfer. Such mechanism was firstly observed in learning the second language but later also applied in bilingualism and foreign languages. This study established theoretical connection of ease of learning the Spanish language through phonology, lexical similarities, and its sociocultural resemblance to Chavacano.
Lean construction (LC) has been used as the potential project management philosophy to overcome some productivity and waste issues and addressing challenges of the construction industry. Furthermore, ...to facilitate LC implementation, different lean tools have been developed for LC. Presently, the initial selection of lean tools is predominantly objective-based with little consideration to its conformity with the construction methodology. This research aims at bringing clarity within the mindset of constructors in selecting the most appropriate tool during the initial selection phase. An extensive literature review is carried out in identifying the objectives and functionalities of each LC tool. The results indicate that many tools have almost similar objectives but different functionalities thereby making the selection criteria sensitive to the functionalities of the lean tools. The functionalities of lean tools have to be consistent with the respective construction processes for the successful implementation of LC. Finally, a framework has been proposed for selecting the most appropriate lean tools. The major contribution of this study is to improve the decision making capability of the constructors in selecting the most appropriate tool that works in consistence with the construction.
Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), the most common malignancy of the endocrine system, is frequently driven by BRAFV600E mutation, which was reported in 35-60% cases in Western series. Numerous ...studies have recently emerged from Asian countries and regions; however sufficient summary is lacking to date. BRAF mutation serves as a diagnostic and prognostic tool in thyroid cancer, therefore establishing a rate of BRAF on the national scale could be of practical significance. We performed systematic reviews of available literature to investigate the prevalence of BRAF mutation in series of PTC from various Asian countries and regions. Out of the total 3,966 reports identified via initial screening, 138 studies encompassing over 40,000 PTCs were included for the final analysis. A vast majority (90.2%) of PTCs with known BRAF status were from East Asia, including China, South Korea, and Japan, with BRAF mutation rates of 71.2%, 75.5%, and 70.6%, respectively. Less abundant Indian and Saudi Arabian series found 45.6% and 46.3% prevalence of BRAFV600E in PTC, respectively. Much limited evidence was available from Thailand, Iran, Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, and Myanmar. No relevant publications were found from other highly populated countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. After grouping by geographic region, we found that the highest rate of BRAFV600E was reported in the PTC series from East Asia (76.4%). Much lower rate (45-48%) was seen in PTC cohorts from South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East while the Southeast Asian series were in between (57%). Further subgroup analysis revealed that studies employing fresh frozen tissue and fine-needle aspirates showed higher rates of BRAF compared to those used formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. We found that the PTC series enrolled patients' cohorts after 2010 demonstrated a higher rate of BRAF compared to the earlier series. Finally, pediatric PTCs had lower BRAF prevalence compared to the baseline rate for the country. In conclusion, despite considerable among and within countries heterogeneity, the Asian PTC series showed a higher prevalence of BRAFV600E mutation than that in Western series. Causes of geographic heterogeneity, whether genuine (etiology, genetics) or methodology-related should be further investigated.
Although an increasing body of data reports the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in air, this does not correlate to the presence of infectious viruses, thus not evaluating the risk for airborne COVID-19. ...Hence there is a marked knowledge gap that requires urgent attention. Therefore, in this systematic review, viability/stability of airborne SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV viruses is discussed.
A systematic literature review was performed on PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science and Scopus to assess the stability and viability of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 on air samples.
The initial search identified 27 articles. Following screening of titles and abstracts and removing duplicates, 11 articles were considered relevant. Temperatures ranging from 20 °C to 25 °C and relative humidity ranging from 40% to 50% were reported to have a protective effect on viral viability for airborne SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. As no data is yet available on the conditions influencing viability for airborne SARS-CoV-2, and given the genetic similarity to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, one could extrapolate that the same conditions would apply. Nonetheless, the effect of these conditions seems to be residual considering the increasing number of cases in the south of USA, Brazil and India, where high temperatures and humidities have been observed.
Higher temperatures and high relative humidity can have a modest effect on SARS-CoV-2 viability in the environment, as reported in previous studies to this date. However, these studies are experimental, and do not support the fact that the virus has efficiently spread in the tropical regions of the globe, with other transmission routes such as the contact and droplet ones probably being responsible for the majority of cases reported in these regions, along with other factors such as human mobility patterns and contact rates. Further studies are needed to investigate the extent of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 as this would have important implications for public health and infection-control policies.
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•Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the air do not correlate to infectivity.•Virus viability in air is important to understand the aerosol transmission.•SARS-CoV-2 may be less stable in higher temperatures and relative humidity.•The effect of temperature and humidity on SARS-CoV-2 seems to be residual.
For over two decades, researchers in the field of human social neuroendocrinology have been using single-dose pharmacological challenge protocols to determine the causal effects of testosterone on ...psychological, behavioural, and neural processes. Most of these single-dose administration studies have so far used (1) single-sex samples and (2) varying modes of testosterone administration (intramuscular, transdermal, sublingual, and intranasal) that produced vastly different dose-response curves. Moreover, whereas studies with male participants increased men's testosterone concentrations within the high normal physiological range, studies with women typically increased testosterone concentrations to supraphysiological levels. The purpose of this study was to develop a single-dose administration protocol using intranasal testosterone that would produce a proportionally similar rise in testosterone for both sexes. We found that an 11 mg intranasal testosterone dose in men and a 0.3 mg dose in women raised testosterone concentrations to the high normal physiological range for each sex, producing similar dose-response dynamics in both sexes. This paradigm will allow researchers to design studies with mixed-sex samples that test physiologically plausible sex differences/similarities in the causal effects of testosterone. It will also provide a replicable protocol to examine the possible adaptive functions of acute increases in testosterone in both sexes.
•We developed a single-dose testosterone administration paradigm for use in men and women•Intranasal testosterone rapidly increased serum testosterone concentrations in both men and women•The rise in serum testosterone concentrations was proportionately similar in men and women•Using this paradigm, researchers can compare the effects of testosterone on psychology and behaviour in men and women
Remote sensing enhances large-scale biodiversity monitoring by overcoming temporal and spatial limitations of ground-based measurements and allows assessment of multiple plant traits simultaneously. ...The total set of traits and their variation over time is specific for each individual and can reveal information about the genetic composition of forest communities. Measuring trait variation among individuals of one species continuously across space and time is a key component in monitoring genetic diversity but difficult to achieve with ground-based methods. Remote sensing approaches using imaging spectroscopy can provide high spectral, spatial, and temporal coverage to advance the monitoring of genetic diversity, if sufficient relation between spectral and genetic information can be established.
We assessed reflectance spectra from individual Fagus sylvatica L. (European beech) trees acquired across eleven years from 69 flights of the Airborne Prism Experiment (APEX) above the same temperate forest in Switzerland. We derived reflectance spectra of 68 canopy trees and correlated differences in these spectra with genetic differences derived from microsatellite markers among the 68 individuals. We calculated these correlations for different points in time, wavelength regions and relative differences between wavelength regions. High correlations indicate high spectral-genetic similarities. We then tested the influence of environmental variables obtained at temporal scales from days to years on spectral-genetic similarities. We performed an uncertainty propagation of radiance measurements to provide a quality indicator for these correlations.
We observed that genetically similar individuals had more similar reflectance spectra, but this varied between wavelength regions and across environmental variables. The short-wave infrared regions of the spectrum, influenced by water absorption, seemed to provide information on the population genetic structure at high temperatures, whereas the visible part of the spectrum, and the near-infrared region affected by scattering properties of tree canopies, showed more consistent patterns with genetic structure across longer time scales. Correlations of genetic similarity with reflectance spectra similarity were easier to detect when investigating relative differences between spectral bands (maximum correlation: 0.40) than reflectance data (maximum correlation: 0.33). Incorporating uncertainties of spectral measurements yielded improvements of spectral-genetic similarities of 36% and 20% for analyses based on single spectral bands, and relative differences between spectral bands, respectively.
This study highlights the potential of dense multi-temporal airborne imaging spectroscopy data to detect the genetic structure of forest communities. We suggest that the observed temporal trajectories of reflectance spectra indicate physiological and possibly genetic constraints on plant responses to environmental change.
•Dense multi-temporal airborne imaging spectroscopy data linked to genetic structure.•Spectral-genetic similarities depend on wavelength region and vary with environment.•Spectral-genetic similarities suggest genetically constrained trait expression.•Accounting for uncertainty improves assessment of spectral-genetic similarities.•Multi-temporal spectral data hold potential for genetic diversity monitoring.
Penile cancer is a rare malignancy with a dichotomy between its incidence and evidence generation. The objective of this review is to highlight the points of consensus and divergences in penile ...cancer care and suggest areas where further research is needed to standardize treatment protocols.
International guidelines and articles in PubMed and Medline were searched for studies on various aspects of penile cancer care.
Across penile cancer care, divergences significantly outnumber similarities at present. The rarity of this disease coupled with paucity of research efforts from regions with a relatively higher incidence are the obvious reasons. The aspect with the most discrepancy is the management of inguinal nodal disease. Also, the role and sequencing of chemotherapy and radiotherapy along with surgery for the management of advanced disease needs to be defined. Collaborative research that has already begun with the establishment of the Global Society of Rare Genitourinary Tumors (GSRGT) can fill in these knowledge gaps in favor of similarities.
Nurses are an integral component of the multidisciplinary team that manages patients with penile cancer. This review summarizes the different management options that might be offered to these patients due to lack of standardization and consensus. It makes the nursing fraternity aware of the various per-operative and quality-of-life issues of each management option so that they are in a position to coordinate the management pathway.
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