bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Molecular Mechanisms of (R,R)ZX-5 on NO Synthesis and Its Anti-Angiogenic Effect
Authors: Pan Li , Hu Jia-Liang , Wang Wen-Jing , Zhang Xiao-Juan , Wei Jin , Liu Zhen-Dong , Zhang Yi-Hua , Xu Han-Mei
Published: February 2012

(R,R)ZX-5 is a NO regulatory compound, which could significantly increase choroidal blood flow in New Zealand rabbit. The aim of this paper is to investigate the molecular mechanism of (R,R)ZX-5 promoting NO production. Besides this, we also investigated the antiangiogenic activity of (R,R)ZX-5. Analysis of Western blot showed that (R,R)ZX-5 up-regulated the expression of Akt, p-Akt (Thr473), eNOS and p-eNOS (Ser1177), down-regulated the expression of Cyclin D1 in human retinal endothelial cells and escalated the intracellular free Ca2+ concentration. Additionally, (R,R)ZX-5 inhibited the growth of blood vessels in the chick chorioallantoic membrane model. It is concluded that (R,R)ZX-5 promotes choroidal blood flow through PI3K/Akt-eNOS and Akt-Ca2+-eNOS pathways. Additionally, (R,R)ZX-5 can inhibit angiogenesis.
Synthesis and Characterization of Privileged Monodentate Phosphoramidite Ligands and Chiral Brønsted Acids Derived from D-Mannitol
Authors: Al-Majid Abdullah Mohammed A. , Barakat Assem , Mabkhot Yahia Nasser , Islam Mohammad Shahidul
Published: February 2012

The synthesis of several novel chiral phosphoramidite ligands (L1–L8) with C2 symmetric, pseudo C2 symmetric secondary amines and chiral Brønsted acids 1a,b has been achieved. These chiral auxiliaries were obtained from commercially available d-mannitol, and secondary amines in moderate to excellent yields. Excellent diastereoselectivites of ten chiral auxiliaries were obtained. The chiral phosphoramidite ligands and chiral Brønsted acids were fully characterized by spectroscopic methods.
Distribution of the Primary Endosymbiont (Candidatus Uzinura Diaspidicola) Within Host Insects from the Scale Insect Family Diaspididae
Authors: Gruwell Matthew E. , Flarhety Meghan , Dittmar Katharina
Published: February 2012

It has long been known that armored scale insects harbor endosymbiotic bacteria inside specialized cells called bacteriocytes. Originally, these endosymbionts were thought to be fungal symbionts but they are now known to be bacterial and have been named Uzinura diaspidicola. Bacteriocyte and endosymbiont distribution patterns within host insects were visualized using in situ hybridization via 16S rRNA specific probes. Images of scale insect embryos, eggs and adult scale insects show patterns of localized bacteriocytes in embryos and randomly distributed bacteriocytes in adults. The symbiont pocket was not found in the armored scale insect eggs that were tested. The pattern of dispersed bacteriocytes in adult scale insects suggest that Uzinura and Blattabacteria may share some homologous traits that coincide with similar life style requirements, such as dispersal in fat bodies and uric acid recycling.
Anabolic Actions of the Regenerative Agent Enamel Matrix Derivative (EMD) in Oral Periosteal Fibroblasts and MG 63 Osteoblasts, Modulation by Nicotine and Glutathione in a Redox Environment
Authors: Al-Qattan Tareq , Soory Mena
Published: February 2012

Our study seeks to explore anabolic effects of a periodontal regenerative agent enamel matrix derivative (EMD). Its modulation by nicotine and the anti-oxidant glutathione (GSH) are investigated in human periosteal fibroblasts (HPF) and MG63 osteoblasts. Androgen biomarkers of oxidative stress and healing, resulting from radiolabeled androgen substrates are assayed. This in vitro model simulates a redox environment relevant to the periodontal lesion. It aims to confirm the hypothesis that EMD is an effective regenerative agent in a typically redox environment of the periodontal lesion. Monolayer cultures of MG63 osteoblasts and HPF established in culture medium are incubated with androgen substrates, and optimal concentrations of EMD, nicotine and GSH, alone and in combination. EMD significantly enhances yields of 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) an effective bioactive metabolite, alone and in combination with GSH, to overcome oxidative effects of nicotine across cultures. The ‘in vitro’ findings of this study could be extrapolated to “in vivo” applications of EMD as an adjunctive regenerative therapeutic agent in an environment of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. Increased yields of DHT implicated in matrix synthesis and direct antioxidant capacity, confirm the potential applications for enamel matrix derivative in periodontal regenerative procedures.
Multi-Input Multi-Output Integrated Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite for Energy Controls
Authors: Nishida Gou , Sugiura Motonobu , Yamakita Masaki , Maschke Bernhard , Ikeura Ryojun
Published: February 2012

This paper presents an integrated sensor/actuator device with multi-input and multi-output designed on the basis of a standard control representation called a distributed port-Hamiltonian system. The device is made from soft material called an ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC). The IPMC consists of a base film of a polyelectrolyte gel and a double layer of plated metal electrodes. The electrodes of the experimental IPMC are sectioned, and it is implemented as a control system with four pairs of inputs/outputs. We stabilize the system, and detect changes in dynamics by using the control representation.
Kinetics of Model Reactions for Interfacial Polymerization
Authors: Robertson Jeffrey , Centeno-Hall Trevor , Padias Anne , Bates Robert , Hall Henry
Published: February 2012

To model the rates of interfacial polycondensations, the rates of reaction of benzoyl chloride and methyl chloroformate with various aliphatic monoamines in acetonitrile were determined at 25 °C. Buffering with picric acid slowed these extremely fast reactions so the rate constants could be determined from the rate of disappearance of picrate ion. The rates of the amine reactions correlated linearly with their Swain-Scott nucleophilicities.
Metamaterials Application in Sensing
Authors: Chen Tao , Li Suyan , Sun Hui
Published: February 2012

Metamaterials are artificial media structured on a size scale smaller than wavelength of external stimuli, and they can exhibit a strong localization and enhancement of fields, which may provide novel tools to significantly enhance the sensitivity and resolution of sensors, and open new degrees of freedom in sensing design aspect. This paper mainly presents the recent progress concerning metamaterials-based sensing, and detailedly reviews the principle, detecting process and sensitivity of three distinct types of sensors based on metamaterials, as well as their challenges and prospects. Moreover, the design guidelines for each sensor and its performance are compared and summarized.
Quantitative multichannel NC-AFM data analysis of graphene growth on SiC(0001)
Authors: Held Christian , Seyller Thomas , Bennewitz Roland
Published: February 2012

Noncontact atomic force microscopy provides access to several complementary signals, such as topography, damping, and contact potential. The traditional presentation of such data sets in adjacent figures or in colour-coded pseudo-three-dimensional plots gives only a qualitative impression. We introduce two-dimensional histograms for the representation of multichannel NC-AFM data sets in a quantitative fashion. Presentation and analysis are exemplified for topography and contact-potential data for graphene grown epitaxially on 6H-SiC(0001), as recorded by Kelvin probe force microscopy in ultrahigh vacuum. Sample preparations by thermal decomposition in ultrahigh vacuum and in an argon atmosphere are compared and the respective growth mechanisms discussed.
Molecular-resolution imaging of pentacene on KCl(001)
Authors: Neff Julia L , Götzen Jan , Li Enhui , Marz Michael , Hoffmann-Vogel Regina
Published: February 2012

The growth of pentacene on KCl(001) at submonolayer coverage was studied by dynamic scanning force microscopy. At coverages below one monolayer pentacene was found to arrange in islands with an upright configuration. The molecular arrangement was resolved in high-resolution images. In these images two different types of patterns were observed, which switch repeatedly. In addition, defects were found, such as a molecular vacancy and domain boundaries.
Échecs et recomposition de la gauche radicale
Authors: Kouvélakis Stathis
Published: February 2012

Résumé Le quinquennat de Sarkozy a inauguré une ère de néolibéralisme ostentatoire et autoritaire, qui déporte vers la droite le paysage social et politique français. La gauche de gauche n’a pas su tirer profit des opportunités créées par les mobilisations sociales impulsées par le mouvement de décembre 1995, et oscille désormais entre le tropisme gestionnaire de la gauche de gouvernement et une nébuleuse de réseaux mouvementistes. La droite sarkozyste aurait-elle réussi à démanteler ce qui restait d’un mouvement ouvrier en crise depuis les années 1970 ?
Économie politique du social-libéralisme
Authors: Husson Michel
Published: February 2012

Résumé « Pourquoi les partis sociaux-démocrates ne font-ils pas des politiques sociales-démocrates ? » L’objet de cet article est d’apporter des éléments de réponse à cette question pertinente, posée lors d’un débat public il y a quelques années à Harlem Désir, alors député socialiste européen. Cela suppose au préalable de définir sommairement ce qu’est une politique social-démocrate. On sait qu’elle ne vise pas à dépasser le capitalisme, mais à le réguler. Cela implique une intervention publique forte dont les objectifs sont de garantir une répartition équitable des revenus, le plein-emploi et un degré élevé de protection sociale. Cette politique nécessite un certain degré de compatibilité avec le mode de fonctionnement du capitalisme. Or cette condition n’est plus remplie dans sa phase néolibérale. La mise en œuvre d’une politique social-démocrate implique alors un degré d’affrontement avec le capitalisme que les partis sociaux-démocrates ne sont pas prêts à assumer.
Quelle réforme fiscale pour la gauche ?
Authors: Drezet Vincent
Published: February 2012

Résumé La proposition de fusionner la contribution sociale généralisée (CSG) et l’impôt sur le revenu (IR) est l’un des grands thèmes du débat fiscal. Des économistes et des responsables politiques d’horizons divers y sont favorables 1 . Est-ce à dire qu’elle fait l’unanimité ? Rien n’est moins sûr. Cette fusion suscite également des doutes voire de franches oppositions. De surcroît, chez ses partisans comme chez ses opposants, elle suscite des débats passionnés, éminemment politiques et parfois polémiques. Car les avis divergent sur de nombreux points (progressivité, assiette, « familialisation », financement de la sécurité sociale...). Disons-le d’emblée, il est difficile de trancher sommairement un tel débat tant les scénarii sont nombreux et leurs implications multiples et complexes. Pour comprendre les enjeux, il est indispensable de disposer des termes de ce débat qui touche à l’évolution des finances de l’État et des finances sociales. Partant du principe que la réhabilitation du sens citoyen de l’impôt est nécessaire et qu’il faut rétablir davantage de justice fiscale, cet article, dont plusieurs éléments sont tirés de la note de la Fondation Copernic consacrée à la fiscalité 2 , tente de faire le point sur les principaux enjeux auxquels le débat sur l’imposition des revenus est confronté.
Au-delà de la parité
Authors: Achin Catherine
Published: February 2012

Résumé Douze ans après la promulgation de la loi relative à la parité, le paysage politique français demeure majoritairement masculin. L’égalité des sexes en politique n’est-elle qu’une vaste illusion ? La loi sur la parité a conduit à une féminisation de certaines assemblées politiques, mais ses effets ont été largement « normalisés » au profit des acteurs politiques dominants. Catherine Achin nous propose dans cet article un état des lieux des rapports de genre en politique.
Institutions : Le renoncement
Authors: François Bastien
Published: February 2012

Résumé Depuis la dernière élection présidentielle un sujet a fait son apparition : Il faut changer la V e  République ! La Constitution de 1958, qui laisse l’essentiel des pouvoirs du président de la République, n’est plus adaptée aux exigences de démocratie actuelles. Les différents partis en lice semblent tous être d’accord, mais quelles sont précisément leurs volontés de changement ? Sont-ce de réelles avancées ou simplement des changements cosmétiques en vue de l’élection ?
Au tournant du siècle, l'internationalisme à l'épreuve
Authors: Habel Janette
Published: February 2012

Résumé L’année 2011 a connu de nombreuses contestations populaires à travers le monde. Des révolutions arabes aux mouvements des indignés de la Puerta del Sol et d’Occupy Wall Street en passant par les luttes des peuples latino-américains, les protestations internationales contre le néolibéralisme furent nombreuses. Pourtant ces combats n’arrivent pas à se fédérer dans un projet politique commun. Le mouvement altermondialiste marque le pas. Le divorce avec les partis politiques se creuse tandis que les gauches divergent sur l’articulation entre la lutte pour les droits sociaux, le combat pour un développement écologique et la mobilisation pour les libertés démocratiques. Janette Habel revient sur ces événements qui ont marqué l’année passée et esquisse le chemin qui reste à parcourir pour renouer les liens d’une solidarité internationaliste.
Que faire et comment faire (encore) de l'écologie politique ?
Authors: Villalba Bruno
Published: February 2012

Résumé Un parti s’est donné comme tache d’élaborer une véritable écologie politique, fondée sur une politique transversale. Comment c’est construit ce parti ? Bruno Villalba nous propose de revenir sur les racines historiques d’Europe Écologie Les Verts (EELV), afin de mieux comprendre les possibilités d’agir en autonomie de ce parti sur la scène politique actuelle.
Front de gauche, aube ou crépuscule ?
Authors: Martelli Roger
Published: February 2012

Résumé La gauche de gauche a raté la grande occasion de 2005-2007. Depuis, rien de définitif n’indique qu’elle a fini d’en payer l’addition. Pourtant, les éléments ne manquent pas qui pourraient aider à sa relance. Mais cette gauche-là revient de loin...
NPA : les raisons d'un échec
Authors: Treillet Stéphanie
Published: February 2012

Résumé L’échec du projet du Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA) suscite des questionnements dont les enjeux vont au-delà de l’histoire propre de ce parti. Cette histoire interroge tout-e militant-e qui pense aujourd’hui nécessaire la construction d’une nouvelle force politique anticapitaliste. Était-il envisageable de penser construire cette nouvelle force, une nouvelle représentation politique de la radicalité sociale, à partir d’une unique organisation attirant à elle de nouveaux militant certes nombreux mais dispersés, et de faire ainsi l’impasse sur une recomposition politique rassemblant différents courants et différentes histoires politiques et militantes ? Les ruptures historiques justifiaient-elles de faire table rase des constructions politiques antérieures, des cadres et des structures du « vieux » mouvement ouvrier, pour ne plus miser que sur les nouvelles formes de mobilisations et les nouvelles générations militantes, dégagées des expériences du passé ?
« De fil en aiguille » : itinéraire d'une intellectuelle militante
Authors: Haeringer Nicolas
Published: February 2012

Résumé « De fil en aiguille », tel pourrait être le titre d’une biographie de Susan George. Son parcours est en effet marqué par une curiosité constante, qui la pousse à « tirer les fils » d’une injustice, pour remonter à sa cause, puis au système, aux institutions et aux acteurs qui l’engendrent et la maintienne. De ses premiers travaux sur la faim à l’altermondialisme des années 1990 et 2000, de la crise de la dette (dès les années 1980) à la justice climatique (ces dernières années), l’itinéraire de Susan George est celui d’une infatigable militante, guidée par des rencontres, des analyses, des mobilisations... Un parcours au long duquel elle a toujours cherché à lier (contre-)expertise et militantisme, soucieuse de pouvoir porter une critique solide et acerbe des élites et des institutions financières internationales.
De la gestion des risques à la production de la sécurité
Authors: Torny Didier
Published: February 2012

Résumé Cet article retrace l’histoire de la préparation à la pandémie grippale depuis 1976 en se centrant d’abord sur l’action des organisations internationales puis sur le cas français. Au-delà des menaces sanitaires, le travail de planification vise à redéfinir la « vie minimale » dans des sociétés contemporaines complexes, en prenant acte des rapports d’interdépendance internes et externes, forgeant simultanément des risques et des mesures de sécurité pour les réduire. Les nombreuses critiques de l’action publique face à la pandémie de 2009 n’amènent pas à un abandon de la préparation, mais à son approfondissement en tenant compte des risques endogènes de la planification (fermeture des hypothèses, irréversibilité) pour produire toujours plus de sécurité.
Comment ranger son bureau ?
Authors: Weller Jean-Marc
Published: February 2012

Résumé Bien qu’elle paraisse prosaïque, la question de savoir « comment ranger son bureau ? » soulève de multiples enjeux. Pour en explorer le sens, cet article s’intéresse au cas de deux administrations déconcentrées de l’État en charge d’attribuer les subventions de la Politique Agricole Commune aux agriculteurs. Ces deux services affichent des manières différentes de classer, de stocker ou de faire circuler l’information. Pourquoi un tel contraste ? Qu’est-ce que nous apprend la comparaison de leurs modes de rangement en termes d’approches et de problématisations possibles de la sécurité réglementaire ? Pour répondre, l’article fait le choix d’une approche pragmatique, focalisant l’attention sur le travail administratif ordinairement accompli.
Manipulation à distance et fascination curieuse
Authors: Auray Nicolas
Published: February 2012

Résumé L’article étudie des situations de manipulation à distance provoquées par un escroc engageant une correspondance électronique sur Internet (scam). Il étudie comment s’institue une relation marquée par les rebondissements narratifs (péripéties) et l’abaissement de la vigilance, susceptible de produire un régime d’emprise. L’isolement relationnel de la victime renforce la difficulté à prendre conscience de la manipulation. Les opérateurs du basculement vers la prise de conscience exigent l’appui sur des indices extérieurs ; à quelles conditions les victimes « ouvrent-elles les yeux » ? Comment se produit l’arrêt de la dynamique d’enfermement crédule, qui s’appuie sur l’habituation et l’engagement progressif de la victime dans le déni et l’autoconviction ? Quels sont les opérateurs de passage pour que s’institue, à l’inverse, une dynamique d’inquiétude curieuse, allant du simple « trouble » non verbalisé à la certitude d’avoir été trompé ?
Performance et éthique : aporie fondatrice du management des sentiments moraux
Authors: Le Duff Robert
Published: February 2012

Grâce au concept d’aporie fondatrice développé par René Thom et en analysant les solutions fantasmatiques qu’il engendre, le but de cet article est de montrer que grâce à une double évolution, celle d’une théorie économique intégrant une préoccupation d’éthique et celle d’un management public orienté vers le management des sentiments moraux, théorie et management deviennent intimement liés. La première assoit la seconde sur des bases scientifiques rigoureuses et la seconde conforte la première en montrant son applicabilité. L’éthique, au lieu d’être un handicap ou un danger, est devenue un levier qui permet à la théorie de s’élargir à des questions fondamentales telles que la liberté et la démocratie. De son côté, le management public a évolué vers une nouvelle approche de la performance. Il a réussi à le faire d’une part, en substituant à l’approche traditionnelle du bien individuel celle d’un bien jouant le rôle de lien entre les individus et d’autre part, grâce à une révision de la décision publique et à l’invention d’un système d’information éloigné du système traditionnel fondé exclusivement sur des variables issues du fonctionnement du monde marchand. Ainsi éthique et performance au service de l’autre fondent ensemble un nouveau système de valeurs.
La « performance sociale » comme horizon ? Les directeurs départementaux de l'aide et de l'action sociales et leurs perceptions de la managérialisation
Authors: Alcaras Jean-Robert , Marchand Christèle , Marrel Guillaume , Nonjon Magali
Published: February 2012

Dans un contexte d’exigence de « performance publique », l’usage rhétorique de la notion de « performance sociale » s’est très largement banalisé dans le secteur social. Comment les acteurs de l’État social perçoivent‑ils ces évolutions ? Si au sommet, les « élites du Welfare » ou, à la base, les travailleurs sociaux, ont déjà fait l’objet d’études, on sait peu de choses, à un niveau intermédiaire, des directeurs départementaux de l’aide et de l’action sociales. Pourtant, ce sont bien ces derniers qui pilotent, au sein des conseils généraux, des politiques sociales largement décentralisées. Cet article analyse leurs perceptions de la managérialisation au prisme de la « performance sociale », à partir de données recueillies lors d’une enquête nationale réalisée en 2011.
Étude d'impact et analyse coûts-avantages : qu'impliquent-elles pour l'élaboration des politiques publiques et les réformes législatives ?
Authors: Rose-Ackerman Susan
Published: February 2012

Les études d’impact font désormais partie du processus législatif en France. L’auteure présente à cette occasion plusieurs éléments tirés de l’expérience nord‑américaine en faisant tout d’abord porter son analyse sur les valeurs (économiques et non économiques) prises ou pouvant être prises en compte dans les études d’impact. Elle souligne que ces différentes valeurs peuvent entrer en conflit. Elle aborde également les forces et les faiblesses de l’analyse coûts‑avantages, en tant que source d’inspiration clef pour le mouvement en faveur des études d’impact en Europe.
Le système de pensions des fonctionnaires et agents de l'Union européenne
Authors: Andreone Fabrice
Published: February 2012

Cet article examine les tendances récentes de l’évolution du système de pension des agents de l’Union européenne ainsi que les débats qu’elle suscite.
Young modulus variation of a brickwork masonry element submitted to high temperatures
Authors: Maciá M. E. , Rolando A.
Published: February 2012

In order to understand the thermal behavior of the masonry elements submitted to high temperatures we need to know the variation of their thermal properties with regard to the temperature. Submitted to high temperatures clay brick masonry presents thermomechanical effects (as the variation of Young's modulus, the thermal expansion of the unit and the mortar, spalling, losses of resistance …) as well as variation of the properties of the material as result of its degradation. In this article the variation of the module of elasticity of the unit and the mortar is described with regard to high temperatures according to the state of the knowledge. In this article is also exposed the results obtained from the experimental program carried out on elements of clay brick masonry submitted to high temperatures in order to observe the variation of Young's module related to temperature.
Le « cadre géologique » dans l'article de géologie en français et en anglais : crédibilité et retenue sur le terrain
Authors: Dressen-Hammouda Dacia
Published: February 2012

Tandis que les caractéristiques de l'article scientifique ont été beaucoup étudiées pour de nombreuses disciplines depuis une quinzaine d'années, celles de la géologie restent relativement ignorées. Pourtant, dans la sous-discipline de la pétrologie on trouve une sous-section jusqu'ici méconnue: le cadre géologique, un « sous-genre » introductif précédant la présentation de l'analyse des échantillons. On verra que ce sous-genre se compose des caractéristiques pétrologiques du terrain étudié, sa topographie et son histoire géologique. Il établit également la crédibilité des auteurs, tout en leur permettant de demeurer dans la modestie. On trouve des similarités entre les textes français et anglais dans leurs macro-structures, mais des différences de style existent au niveau local de la communauté de discours.
E-Simulations for Educating the Professions in Blended Learning Environments
Authors: Holt Dale , Segrave Stephen , Cybulski Jacob L.
Published: February 2012

This chapter introduces digital, role-based simulations as an emerging and powerful educational approach for the professions and for broader workforce development purposes. It is acknowledged that simulations used for education, professional development, and training, have a long history of development and use. The focus is on digital simulations (e-simulations) situated in blended learning environments and the improved affordances of the newer digital media used via the web to enhance the value of their contribution to learning and teaching in professional and vocationally-oriented fields. This is an area which has received less attention in the whole “e-learning” literature compared with the voluminous body of knowledge and practice on computer-mediated communication, online community building, social networking, and various forms of online (usually automated) assessment. A framework of blended e-simulation design is outlined. The chapter concludes by examining what the future might hold for simulations in further and higher education, and ongoing work-based learning.
E-Simulations for the Purpose of Training Forensic (Investigative) Interviewers
Authors: Guadagno Belinda , Powell Martine
Published: February 2012

One of the most critical issues facing investigative organisations is how best to administer effective practice opportunities in investigative interviewing on a global scale. Interviewer evaluation research across the world has highlighted inadequacies in the adherence to and maintenance of best-practice interview approaches, and insufficient opportunities for practice and feedback are the major reasons attributed by experts for poor interviewer competency. “Unreal Interviewing: Virtual Forensic Interviewing of a Child” (an e-simulation created at Deakin University, Australia) was developed as a way to ‘expand the reach’ of trainers in the investigative interviewing area. The simulation enables trainers to provide ongoing professional development for forensic interviewers in dispersed work environments, without the financial burden on organisations of extracting large numbers of professionals from the workplace to the classroom. This chapter provides readers with: an overview of the key stages involved in the development of Unreal Interviewing and the education and technical decisions that needed to be made; and a review of the application of “Unreal Interviewing” in the training and continuing professional development of trainees in their workplace.
Simulating Difficult Nurse Patient Relationships
Authors: Kandlbinder Peter , Brunero Scott
Published: February 2012

Difficult nurse-patient relationships are an area where general nurses can improve their knowledge, confidence and skill. This chapter describes a user-centred approach used to create a low-cost e-simulation of a commonly occurring case of manipulative patient behaviour. This e-simulation required nurses to focus on specific problems, gain understanding about the possible causes, and use empathetic understanding of what was needed to improve patient care. Specific examples from our experience of including nurses from the very beginning of the design process illustrate how everyday technology can provide an authentic experience of difficult nurse-patient behaviours to prepare general nursing staff who are facing a higher incidence of mental illness in patients that are now in the general hospital setting.
Using E-Simulations in Retail Sales Training Benefits of Blended Learning Design
Authors: Slotte Virpi , Herbert Anne
Published: February 2012

This chapter concentrates on e-simulation training programs used as part of workplace learning when socially situated interaction and blended learning are specifically included in the instructional design. In this research project, the responses of more than 750 learners were studied in order to answer the questions: How did the learners experience learning from e-simulation? And what were the structural features of the e-simulation sales training programs that promoted the learning of the participants? The e-simulations were an engaging and fun way of learning, reported the learners, but there were other benefits. The authentic dialogue exercises with socially-situated interaction, both online and face-to-face, improved the learners’ awareness and understanding of various practical ways to handle challenging situations. The results are attributable to the proper opportunity to supplement learning with practice, achieved through the design features of the program. Suggestions are made for the design of future programs.
The SUPL Approach
Authors: Garrett Michael , McMahon Mark
Published: February 2012

A case study has been undertaken using the SUPL approach to design an occupational health and safety training platform, designated the Fires in Underground Mines Evacuation Simulator (FUMES), to support traditional training for underground mining in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the SUPL approach as a design framework. This chapter offers guidance for the design of future e-simulations using the SUPL approach as well as report on current research and evaluation on the impact of FUMES within a blended learning environment.
From Object Recognition to Object Localization
Authors: Kouskouridas Rigas , Gasteratos Antonios
Published: February 2012

Recognizing objects in a scene is a fundamental task in image understanding. The recent advances in robotics and related technologies have placed more challenges and stricter requirements to this issue. In such applications, robots must be equipped with a sense of location and direction with a view to the efficient accomplishment of navigation or demanding pick and place tasks. In addition, spatial information is required in surveillance processes where recognized targets are located in the working space of the robot. Furthermore, accurate perception of depth is mandatory in driver assistance applications. This chapter presents several recently proposed methods capable of first recognizing objects and then providing their spatial information in cluttered environments.
Object Segmentation Based on a Nonparametric Snake with Motion Prediction in Video
Authors: Ye Sang-Myoung , Park Rae-Hong , Lee Dong-Kyu
Published: February 2012

Object segmentation in video sequence is a basic and important task in video applications such as surveillance systems and video coding. Nonparametric snake algorithms for object segmentation have been proposed to overcome the drawback of conventional snake algorithms: the dependency on several parameters. In this chapter, a new object segmentation algorithm for video, based on a nonparametric snake model with motion prediction, is proposed. Object contour is initialized by using the mean absolute difference of intensity between input and previous frames. And in order to convert initial object contours into more exact object contours, the gradient vector flow snake is used. Finally object contour is predicted using a Kalman filter in successive frames. The proposed object segmentation method for video can provide more detailed and improved object segmentation results than the conventional methods. Various experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of the pixel-based quality measure and the computation time.
Analysis of Face Space for Recognition using Interval-Valued Subspace Technique
Authors: Prabhakar C.J.
Published: February 2012

The major contribution of the research work presented in this chapter is the development of effective face recognition algorithm using analysis of face space in the interval-valued subspace. The analysis of face images is used for various purposes such as facial expression classification, gender determination, age estimation, emotion assessment, face recognition, et cetera. The research community of face image analysis has developed many techniques for face recognition; one of the successful techniques is based on subspace analysis. In the first part of the chapter, the authors present discussion of earliest face recognition techniques, which are considered as mile stones in the roadmap of subspace based face recognition techniques. The second part presents one of the efficient interval-valued subspace techniques, namely, symbolic Kernel Fisher Discriminant analysis (Symbolic KFD), in which the interval type features are extracted in contrast to classical subspace based techniques where single valued features are used for face representation and recognition.
Object Recognition with a Limited Database Using Shape Space Theory
Authors: Han Yuexing , Wang Bing , Koike Hideki , Idesawa Masanori
Published: February 2012

One of the main goals of image understanding and computer vision applications is to recognize an object from various images. Object recognition has been deeply developed for the last three decades, and a lot of approaches have been proposed. Generally, these methods of object recognition can successfully achieve their goal by relying on a large quantity of data. However, if the observed objects are shown to diverse configurations, it is difficult to recognize them with a limited database. One has to prepare enough data to exactly recognize one object with multi-configurations, and it is hard work to collect enough data only for a single object. In this chapter, the authors will introduce an approach to recognize objects with multi-configurations using the shape space theory. Firstly, two sets of landmarks are obtained from two objects in two-dimensional images. Secondly, the landmarks represented as two points are projected into a pre-shape space. Then, a series of new intermediate data can be obtained from data models in the pre-shape space. Finally, object recognition can be achieved in the shape space with the shape space theory.
Efficient Iris Identification with Improved Segmentation Techniques
Authors: Verma Abhishek , Liu Chengjun
Published: February 2012

In this chapter, the authors propose and implement an improved iris recognition method based on image enhancement and heuristics. They make major improvements in the iris segmentation phase. In particular, the authors implement the raised to power operation for more accurate detection of the pupil region. Additionally, with their technique they are able to considerably reduce the candidate limbic boundary search space; this leads to a significant increase in the accuracy and speed of the segmentation. Furthermore, the authors selectively detect the limbic circle having center within close range of the pupil center. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated on a grand challenge, large scale database: the Iris Challenge Evaluation (ICE) dataset.
Color Image Segmentation of Endoscopic and Microscopic Images for Abnormality Detection in Esophagus
Authors: Hiremath P. S. , Humnabad Iranna Y.
Published: February 2012

The study of medical image analysis encompasses the various techniques for acquisition of images of biological structures pertaining to human body using radiations in different frequency ranges. The advancements in medical imaging over the past decades are enabling physicians to non-invasively peer inside the human body for the purpose of diagnosis and therapy. In this chapter, the objective is to focus on the studies relating to the analysis of endoscopic images of lower esophagus for abnormal region detection and identification of cancerous growth. Several color image segmentation techniques have been developed for automatic detection of cancerous regions in endoscopic images, which assists the physician for faster, proper diagnosis and treatment of the disease. These segmentation methods are evaluated for comparing their performances in different color spaces, namely, RGB, HSI, YCbCr, HSV, and CIE Lab. The segmented images are expected to assist the medical expert in drawing the biopsy samples precisely from the detected pathological legions. Further, various methods have been proposed for segmentation and classification of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) from color microscopic images of esophagus tissue during pathological investigation. The efficacy of these methods has been demonstrated experimentally with endoscopic and microscopic image set and compared with manual segmentation done by medical experts. It is envisaged that the research in this direction eventually leads to the design and production of efficient intelligent computer vision systems for assisting the medical experts in their task of speedy accurate diagnosis of diseases and prescription of appropriate treatment of the patients.
Facial Muscle Activity Patterns for Recognition of Utterances in Native and Foreign Language
Authors: Arjunan Sridhar , Kumar Dinesh Kant , Weghorn Hans , Naik Ganesh
Published: February 2012

The need for developing reliable and flexible human computer interface is increased and applications of HCI have been in each and every field. Human factors play an important role in these kinds of interfaces. Research and development of new human computer interaction (HCI) techniques that enhance the flexibility and reliability for the user are important. Research on new methods of computer control has focused on three types of body functions: speech, bioelectrical activity, and use of mechanical sensors. Speech operated systems have the advantage that these provide the user with flexibility. Such systems have the potential for making computer control effortless and natural. This chapter summarizes research conducted to investigate the use of facial muscle activity for a reliable interface to identify voiceless speech based commands without any audio signals. System performance and reliability have been tested to study inter-subject and inter-day variations and impact of the native language of the speaker. The experimental results indicate that such a system has high degree of inter-subject and inter-day variations. The results also indicate that the variations of the style of speaking in the native language are low but are high when the speaker speaks in a foreign language. The results also indicate that such a system is suitable for a very small vocabulary. The authors suggest that facial sEMG based speech recognition systems may only find limited applications.
Devnagari Script Recognition
Authors: Mukherji P. , Rege P.P.
Published: February 2012

Devnagari script is the most widely used script in India and its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) poses many challenges. Handwritten script has many variations, and existing methods used are discussed. The authors have also collected a database on which the techniques are tested. The techniques are based on structural methods as opposite to statistical methods. There are some special properties of Devnagari script like the topline, curves, and various types of connections that have been exploited in the methods discussed in this chapter.
Emotion Recognition from Facial Expression and Electroencephalogram Signals
Authors: Konar Amit , Chakraborty Aruna , Bhowmik Pavel , Das Sauvik , Halder Anisha
Published: February 2012

This chapter proposes new approaches to emotion recognition from facial expression and electroencephalogram signals. Subjects are excited with selective audio-visual stimulus, responsible for arousal of specific emotions. Manifestation of emotion which appears in facial expression and EEG are recorded. Subsequently the recorded information is analyzed for extraction of features, and a support vector machine classifier is used to classify the extracted features into emotion classes. An alternative scheme for emotion recognition directly from the electroencephalogram signals using Duffing Oscillator is also presented. Experimental results are given to compare the relative merits of the proposed schemes with existing works.
ICA as Pattern Recognition Technique for Gesture Identification
Authors: Naik Ganesh , Kumar Dinesh Kant , Arjunan Sridhar
Published: February 2012

In recent times there is an urgent need for a simple yet robust system to identify natural hand actions and gestures for controlling prostheses and other computer assisted devices. Surface Electromyogram (sEMG) is a non-invasive measure of the muscle activities but is not reliable because there are multiple simultaneously active muscles. This research first establishes the conditions for the applicability of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) pattern recognition techniques for sEMG. Shortcomings related to order and magnitude ambiguity have been identified and a mitigation strategy has been developed by using a set of unmixing matrix and neural network weight matrix corresponding to the specific user. The experimental results demonstrate a marked improvement in the accuracy. The other advantages of this system are that it is suitable for real time operations and it is easy to train by a lay user.
Fuzzy Cognitive Map Reasoning Mechanism for Handling Uncertainty and Missing Data
Authors: Papageorgiou Elpiniki I.
Published: February 2012

In this study, the fuzzy causal map inference mechanisms are analyzed for decision making tasks and a comparative analysis is performed to handle with the uncertainty in the problem of pulmonary risk prediction. Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) is a causal graphical representation including nodes, determining the most relevant factors of a complex system, and links between these nodes determining the relationships between those factors. It represents knowledge in a symbolic manner and relates states, processes, policies, events, values, and inputs in an analogous manner. In the proposed work, a modified inference mechanism for FCM approach, which handles uncertainty and missing data, is presented and compared with the common fuzzy causal graph reasoning process for a medical diagnosis problem. Through this study, we overcome the problem of missing data and/or incomplete knowledge, especially for the cases where there is no any information about a concept-state or the knowledge of some concepts is insufficient. By this way, the rescaled inference process is proved more reliable, yielding more exact and natural inference results than traditional FCMs. A number of different scenarios for medical diagnosis concentrated on the pulmonary infections are elaborated to demonstrate the functioning of the rescaled FCM inference mechanism.
Computational Semantics Requires Computation
Authors: Wilks Yorick
Published: February 2012

This chapter argues, briefly, that much work in formal Computational Semantics (alias CompSem) is not computational at all, and does not attempt to be; there is some mis-description going on here on a large and long-term scale. The aim of this chapter is to show that such work is not just misdescribed, but loses value because of the scientific importance of implementation and validation in this, as in all parts of Artificial Intelligence. It is the raison d’etre of this subject. Moreover, the examples used to support formal CompSem’s value for the representation of the meaning of language strings often have no place in normal English usage, nor in corpora. This fact, if true, should be better understood as should how this paradoxical situation has arisen and is tolerated. Recent large-scale developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP), such as machine translation or question answering, which are quite successful and undeniably both semantic and computational, have made no use of formal CompSem techniques. Most importantly, the Semantic Web (and Information Extraction techniques generally) now offer the possibility of the large scale use of language data so as to achieve concrete results achieved by methods usually deemed impossible by formal semanticists, such as annotation methods, which are fundamentally forms of Lewis’ (1970) “markerese,” the term he coined to dismiss methods that involve symbolic “mark up” of texts, rather than using formal logic to represent meaning.
Information Extraction from Text and Beyond
Authors: Moens Marie-Francine
Published: February 2012

In this chapter, the author defines information extraction from text, describes common information extraction tasks, and discusses current information extraction issues being the need to develop technologies that require a minimum of human supervision, to build systems that automatically acquire world knowledge, and to integrate their outputs into advanced information extraction systems. Current emerging research on extraction of narrative scenarios and complex concepts revives an old dream and opens a way to full natural language understanding.
Lexical Challenges in the Intersection of Applied Linguistics and ANLP
Authors: Jarvis Scott
Published: February 2012

The investigation of natural language processing in the field of Applied Linguistics is pursued with both theoretical and practical aims, such as arriving at a clearer understanding of the nature of language knowledge, the rules that govern its use, how it is acquired, how unique it is to individual speakers, and how it can best be taught to learners. The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to some of the prominent areas of overlap between Applied Linguistics and ANLP, highlighting the problems they face in relation to the characterization of lexical deployment, and focusing particularly on challenges related to the measurement of lexical diversity and the representation of the unique lexical signatures of individual samples of natural language use. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to describing preliminary solutions to these challenges.
Guru
Authors: Olney Andrew M. , Person Natalie K. , Graesser Arthur C.
Published: February 2012

The authors discuss Guru, a conversational expert ITS. Guru is designed to mimic expert human tutors using advanced applied natural language processing techniques including natural language understanding, knowledge representation, and natural language generation.
Disambiguation and Filtering Methods in Using Web Knowledge for Coreference Resolution
Authors: Uryupina Olga , Poesio Massimo , Giuliano Claudio , Tymoshenko Kateryna
Published: February 2012

The authors investigate two publicly available Web knowledge bases, Wikipedia and Yago, in an attempt to leverage semantic information and increase the performance level of a state-of-the-art coreference resolution engine. They extract semantic compatibility and aliasing information from Wikipedia and Yago, and incorporate it into a coreference resolution system. The authors show that using such knowledge with no disambiguation and filtering does not bring any improvement over the baseline, mirroring the previous findings (Ponzetto & Poesio, 2009). They propose, therefore, a number of solutions to reduce the amount of noise coming from Web resources: using disambiguation tools for Wikipedia, pruning Yago to eliminate the most generic categories and imposing additional constraints on affected mentions. The evaluation experiments on the ACE-02 corpus show that the knowledge, extracted from Wikipedia and Yago, improves the system’s performance by 2-3 percentage points.
Improving Spoken Dialogue Understanding Using Phonetic Mixture Models
Authors: Wang William Yang , Artstein Ron , Leuski Anton , Traum David
Published: February 2012

Reasoning about sound similarities improves the performance of a Natural Language Understanding component that interprets speech recognizer output: the authors observed a 5% to 7% reduction in errors when they augmented the word strings with a phonetic representation, derived from the words by means of a dictionary. The best performance comes from mixture models incorporating both word and phone features. Since the phonetic representation is derived from a dictionary, the method can be applied easily without the need for integration with a specific speech recognizer. The method has similarities with autonomous (or bottom-up) psychological models of lexical access, where contextual information is not integrated at the stage of auditory perception but rather later.