In the Fall of 2000, we collected a database of more than 40,000 facial images of 68 people. Using the Carnegie Mellon University 3D Room, we imaged each person across 13 different poses, under 43 ...different illumination conditions, and with four different expressions. We call this the CMU pose, illumination, and expression (PIE) database. We describe the imaging hardware, the collection procedure, the organization of the images, several possible uses, and how to obtain the database.
Factors associated with an individual's awareness of vulnerability can be modified by the infrastructure of a city. These factors may impact disaster preparedness among local populations in an ...infrastructure-resilient city, which further influences the health risks of various population subgroups.
This was a population-based study.
Four population subgroups, which have previously been reported to be related to awareness of vulnerability (i.e. past experiences, sociodemographic deprivation, poor housing conditions and family medical needs), were analysed for their impacts on disaster preparedness. Validated population-based phone interviews (n = 856) were conducted in Hong Kong. Three types of disaster preparedness were studied: (1) physical preparedness; (2) social preparedness; and (3) education preparedness.
Previous experience of social hazards, accidental hazards and epidemics increased disaster preparedness among the local population. Specifically, experiences of accidental hazards and social hazards were positively associated with physical preparedness (odds ratios 1.626, 95% confidence interval 95% CI 1.215, 2.172) and 1.501 95% CI 1.114, 2.024, respectively). However, experiences of natural hazards did not increase preparedness, even in Hong Kong, which is a city with high ‘disaster resilience’ because of its well-developed infrastructure. Moreover, individuals with a low educational level or low income had lower education preparedness, unmarried individuals had lower social preparedness, and poor housing conditions of non-private-housing households had negative associations with education preparedness. These findings partially align with local disaster responses to the 2018 Typhoon Mangkhut, the 2019 social unrest and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, all of which were observed after the 2018 survey reported in this study.
Social and environmental interventions should be targeted to marginalised subpopulations through location-based community strategies to encourage increased environmental knowledge and participation in disaster preparedness activities.
This study evaluated the uptake of Western Australian (WA) pharmacist vaccination services, the profiles of consumers being vaccinated and the facilitators and challenges experienced by pharmacy ...staff in the preparation, implementation and delivery of services.
Mixed-methods methodology with both quantitative and qualitative data through surveys, pharmacy computer records and immuniser pharmacist interviews.
Community pharmacies in WA that provided pharmacist vaccination services between March and October 2015.
Immuniser pharmacists from 86 pharmacies completed baseline surveys and 78 completed exit surveys; computer records from 57 pharmacies; 25 immuniser pharmacists were interviewed.
Pharmacy and immuniser pharmacist profiles; pharmacist vaccination services provided and consumer profiles who accessed services.
15 621 influenza vaccinations were administered by immuniser pharmacists at 76 WA community pharmacies between March and October 2015. There were no major adverse events, and <1% of consumers experienced minor events which were appropriately managed. Between 12% and 17% of consumers were eligible to receive free influenza vaccinations under the National Immunisation Program but chose to have it at a pharmacy. A high percentage of vaccinations was delivered in rural and regional areas indicating that provision of pharmacist vaccination services facilitated access for rural and remote consumers. Immuniser pharmacists reported feeling confident in providing vaccination services and were of the opinion that services should be expanded to other vaccinations. Pharmacists also reported significant professional satisfaction in providing the service. All participating pharmacies intended to continue providing influenza vaccinations in 2016.
This initial evaluation of WA pharmacist vaccination services showed that vaccine delivery was safe. Convenience and accessibility were important aspects in usage of services. There is scope to expand pharmacist vaccination services to other vaccines and younger children; however, government funding to pharmacists needs to be considered.
The Fisher linear discriminant (FLD) is commonly used in pattern recognition. It finds a linear subspace that maximally separates class patterns according to the Fisher criterion. Several methods of ...computing the FLD have been proposed in the literature, most of which require the calculation of the so-called scatter matrices. In this paper, we bring a fresh perspective to FLD via the Fukunaga-Koontz transform (FKT). We do this by decomposing the whole data space into four subspaces with different discriminabilities, as measured by eigenvalue ratios. By connecting the eigenvalue ratio with the generalized eigenvalue, we show where the Fisher Criterion is maximally satisfied. We prove the relationship between FLD and FKT analytically and propose a unified framework to understanding some existing work. Furthermore, we extend our theory to the multiple discriminant analysis (MDA). This is done by transforming the data into intraclass and extraclass spaces, followed by maximizing the Bhattacharyya distance. Based on our FKT analysis, we identify the discriminant subspaces of MDA/FKT and propose an efficient algorithm, which works even when the scatter matrices are singular or too large to be formed. Our method is general and may be applied to different pattern recognition problems. We validate our method by experimenting on synthetic and real data.
We use paleoecological techniques to investigate how Canadian High Arctic wetlands responded to a mid‐twentieth century increase in growing degree days. We observe an increase in wetness, moss ...diversity, and carbon accumulation in a polygon mire trough, likely related to ice wedge thaw. Contrastingly, the raised center of the polygon mire showed no clear response. Wet and dry indicator testate amoebae increased concomitantly in a valley fen, possibly relating to greater inundation from snowmelt followed by increasing evapotranspiration. This occurred alongside the appearance of generalist hummock mosses. A coastal fen underwent a shift from sedge to shrub dominance. The valley and coastal fens transitioned from minerogenic to organic‐rich wetlands prior to the growing degree days increase. A subsequent shift to moss dominance in the coastal fen may relate to intensive grazing from Arctic geese. Our findings highlight the complex response of Arctic wetlands to warming and have implications for understanding their future carbon sink potential.
Plain Language Summary
The response of Arctic wetland ecosystems and carbon stores to climate change is uncertain. We investigate the response of wetland ecosystems in the Canadian High Arctic to twentieth century climate warming. We use proxies for changes in vegetation (plant macrofossils) and wetness (testate amoebae) preserved in the wetland soil in combination with radiocarbon dating to reconstruct the past ecology of these wetlands. This approach allows us to explore beyond the timeframe of monitoring studies. Our results suggest that wetland type is an important determinant of the response of ecological, hydrological, and soil carbon accumulation to climate warming. Our findings highlight the clear but complex response of Arctic wetlands to twentieth century warming. This has important implications for understanding the future carbon sink potential of these ecosystems.
Key Points
The ecological, hydrological, and C accumulation responses of Arctic wetlands to climate warming may be strongly influenced by wetland type
Contrasting site‐specific responses to an increase in growing degree days include increased moss diversity and a shift to shrub dominance
Intensive grazing from Arctic geese may be an important driver for recent vegetation change in High Arctic coastal wetlands
Conventional verification systems, such as those controlling access to a secure room, do not usually require the user to reauthenticate himself for continued access to the protected resource. This ...may not be sufficient for high-security environments in which the protected resource needs to be continuously monitored for unauthorized use. In such cases, continuous verification is needed. In this paper, we present the theory, architecture, implementation, and performance of a multimodal biometrics verification system that continuously verifies the presence of a logged-in user. Two modalities are currently used - face and fingerprint - but our theory can be readily extended to include more modalities. We show that continuous verification imposes additional requirements on multimodal fusion when compared to conventional verification systems. We also argue that the usual performance metrics of false accept and false reject rates are insufficient yardsticks for continuous verification and propose new metrics against which we benchmark our system
Background
The more than one billion children living in poverty worldwide are often marginalized from the resources needed for health and well-being, a situation that may create feelings of ...hopelessness and diminish chances for thriving. Compassion International (CI), a faith-based child-sponsorship organization committed to alleviating child poverty and promoting thriving, uses a strengths-based, positive youth development (PYD) perspective that emphasizes the importance of religious faith as an asset in the lives of youth.
Objective
In an initial assessment of CI’s approach to promoting PYD, we tested measures aimed at comparing youth enrolled in CI to youth not enrolled in CI.
Method
We collected survey data from 888 Salvadoran youth (50% female), ages 9–15 years (
M
= 11.60 years,
SD
= 1.7), half (49.9%) of whom were enrolled in CI programs. Examining the relations among spirituality, hope, and PYD, we refined the measurement model for parsimony and robustness across groups and established measurement invariance.
Results
This measure development work allowed us to make meaningful comparisons of latent means and correlation patterns. CI-supported youth were found to report higher levels of Transcendence (spirituality) and Character (one of the Five Cs of PYD) than non-CI-supported youth, and CI-supported youth demonstrated a significant relation between Character and Connection that was not present in non-CI-supported youth.
Conclusions
We discuss implications of these findings for further tests of the CI approach to PYD and, more generally, for applications aimed at enhancing the life chances of poor children around the globe.
A review of social work practice research in Hong Kong identified 969 articles published over 50 years. Four main areas of their content were analyzed: (a) authorship, (b) practice area, (c) target ...clientele, and (d) research method. Our results showed that academics had produced most of the research publications (81%). The most common practice areas were children and youth (20%), mental health (19%), family (19%), and the elderly (11%). Youth (22%), the elderly (14%), and family and parents (14%) were the top three client groups. The majority of the methods (47%) used were quantitative, comprising mostly correlational methods (41%). The future development of Hong Kong’s social work practice research should build on current achievements and promote more practitioner–researcher collaboration.
Oncogenic mutations of the receptor tyrosine kinase c-KIT play an important role in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal stromal tumors, systemic mastocytosis, and some acute myeloid leukemias (AML). ...Although juxtamembrane mutations commonly detected in gastrointestinal stromal tumor are sensitive to tyrosine kinase inhibitors, the kinase domain mutations frequently encountered in systemic mastocytosis and AML confer resistance and are largely unresponsive to targeted inhibition by the existing agent imatinib. In this study, we show that myeloid cells expressing activated c-KIT mutants that are imatinib sensitive (V560G) or imatinib resistant (D816V) can inhibit the tumor suppressor activity of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). This effect was associated with the reduced expression of PP2A structural (A) and regulatory subunits (B55alpha, B56alpha, B56gamma, and B56delta). Overexpression of PP2A-Aalpha in D816V c-KIT cells induced apoptosis and inhibited proliferation. In addition, pharmacologic activation of PP2A by FTY720 reduced proliferation, inhibited clonogenic potential, and induced apoptosis of mutant c-KIT(+) cells, while having no effect on wild-type c-KIT cells or empty vector controls. FTY720 treatment caused the dephosphorylation of the D816V c-KIT receptor and its downstream signaling targets pAkt, pSTAT5, and pERK1/2. Additionally, in vivo administration of FTY720 delayed the growth of V560G and D816V c-KIT tumors, inhibited splenic and bone marrow infiltration, and prolonged survival. Our findings show that PP2A inhibition is essential for c-KIT-mediated tumorigenesis, and that reactivating PP2A may offer an attractive strategy to treat drug-resistant c-KIT(+) cancers.
Disinfection is one of the most effective ways to block the rapid transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Due to the prolonged coronavirus disease 2019 ...(COVID-19) pandemic, disinfectants have become crucial to prevent person-to-person transmission and decontaminate hands, clothes, facilities and equipment. However, there is a lack of accurate information on the virucidal activity of commercial disinfectants.
To evaluate the virucidal efficacy of 72 commercially available disinfectants constituting 16 types of ingredients against SARS-CoV-2.
SARS-CoV-2 was tested with various concentrations of disinfectants at indicated exposure time points as recommended by the manufacturers. The 50% tissue culture infectious dose assay was used to calculate virus titre, and trypan blue staining and CCK-8 were used to assess cell viability after 3–5 days of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
This study found that disinfectants based on 83% ethanol, 60% propanol/ethanol, 0.00108–0.0011% sodium dichloroisocyanurate and 0.497% potassium peroxymonosulfate inactivated SARS-CoV-2 effectively and safely. Although disinfectants based on 0.05–0.4% benzalkonium chloride (BAC), 0.02–0.07% quaternary ammonium compound (QAC; 1:1), 0.4% BAC/didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC), 0.28% benzethonium chloride concentrate/2-propanol, 0.0205–0.14% DDAC/polyhexamethylene biguanide hydrochloride (PHMB) and 0.5% hydrogen peroxide inactivated SARS-CoV-2 effectively, they exhibited cytotoxicity. Conversely, disinfectants based on 0.04–4% QAC (2:3), 0.00625% BAC/DDAC/PHMB, and 0.0205–0.14% and 0.0173% peracetic acid showed approximately 50% virucidal efficacy with no cytotoxicity. Citric acid (0.4%) did not inactivate SARS-CoV-2.
These results indicate that most commercially available disinfectants exert a disinfectant effect against SARS-CoV-2. However, re-evaluation of the effective concentration and exposure time of certain disinfectants is needed, especially citric acid and peracetic acid.
PDF
