cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Living in interesting times
Creators: name: Newton, Jenni
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: South Australians have been interested in electoral matters for a long time. South Australia introduced the secret baUot in 1856 - a month after Victoria and only the second colony to do so. By the time that the various colonies voted to federate in 1899 and 1900, women in South Australia as well as in New Zealand and Western Australia could have their own votes recorded. More recently, after the South Australian State election of 1989, in which the Liberal Party received 52% of the two party preferred vote but failed to win a majority of the seats, the Constitution Act was changed to require a review of the electoral boundaries after each State election, and - perhaps more importantly - the changes required the South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission to take votes into account when making any boundary changes. [Introduction]
Elucidating the physical mechanisms of membrane fission
Creators: name: Snead, Wilton Thomas
name: 0000-0003-1411-1281
Publisher: name: The University of Texas at Austin
Year: 2018
Subjects: Membrane fission
Membrane biophysics
Protein crowding
Intrinsically disordered proteins
BAR domains

description: Cellular membranes must be dynamically remodeled to facilitate essential cellular functions like membrane trafficking, cell division, and organelle biogenesis. However, membranes are resistant to the deformations required to shape them and divide them into multiple compartments, the process known as membrane fission. Therefore, proteins must provide significant energetic contributions to drive these processes. For example, helical protein scaffolds that assemble at membrane surfaces are thought to force membranes to adopt the curved geometry of the scaffold. In another example, hydrophobic portions of proteins that insert shallowly into membranes are thought to expand the area of one membrane monolayer relative to the opposite monolayer, causing the membrane to take on curvature and undergo fission. In my dissertation work, I have discovered another mechanism of membrane fission that relies on protein crowding. Specifically, molecular collisions among proteins densely attached to membrane surfaces generates significant steric pressure that, if not balanced on the opposite membrane monolayer, can drive membrane curvature and spontaneous membrane fission. My work has revealed that steric pressure can drive membrane fission regardless of the hydrophobicity of membrane insertions, arguing against the role of hydrophobic insertions in membrane fission. In further support of the protein crowding mechanism, I find that disordered protein domains, which occupy greater areas on the membrane surface in comparison to globular proteins of similar mass, are among the most potent drivers of membrane fission. I also report the surprising finding that the assembly of helical protein scaffolds at membrane surfaces locally amplifies crowding among disordered domains found naturally in many scaffolding proteins. The resulting acute increase in steric pressure drives membrane fission with greater potency compared to non-assembling proteins. My work thereby reveals a synergistic collaboration between structured proteins that assemble at membrane surfaces and disordered proteins that generate steric pressure. More broadly, my results challenge the paradigm that dedicated, structured protein machines are required for membrane fission, suggesting instead that any protein may contribute to fission by generating steric pressure. As such, my findings suggest how early cells may have achieved membrane fission before the evolution of dedicated fission proteins.
Pharmacist-led therapeutic carbohydrate restriction as a treatment strategy for type 2 diabetes: the Pharm-TCR randomized controlled trial protocol
Creators: name: Durrer, Cody
name: McKelvey, Sean
name: Singer, Joel
name: Batterham, Alan M.
name: Johnson, James D.
name: Wortman, Jay
name: Little, Jonathan P.
Publisher: name: BioMed Central
Year: 2020

description: Background: The current treatment paradigm for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) typically involves use of multiple medications to lower glucose levels in hope of reducing long-term complications. However, such treatment does not necessarily address the underlying pathophysiology of the disease and very few patients achieve partial, complete, or prolonged remission of T2D after diagnosis. The therapeutic potential of nutrition has been highlighted recently based on results of clinical trials reporting remission of T2D with targeted dietary approaches. During the initial phase of such interventions that restrict carbohydrates and/or induce rapid weight loss, hypoglycemia presents a notable risk to patients. We therefore hypothesized that delivering very low-carbohydrate, low-calorie therapeutic nutrition through community pharmacies would be an innovative strategy to facilitate lowering of glycated hemoglobin (A1C) while safely reducing the use of glucose-lowering medications in T2D. Methods: A community-based randomized controlled trial that is pragmatic in nature, following a parallel-group design will be conducted (N = 200). Participants will have an equal chance of being randomized to either a pharmacist-led, therapeutic carbohydrate restricted (Pharm-TCR) diet or guideline-based treatment as usual (TAU). Pharm-TCR involves a 12-week very low carbohydrate, calorie-restricted commercial diet plan led by pharmacists and lifestyle coaches with pharmacists responsible for managing medications in collaboration with the participants’ family physicians. Main inclusion criteria are diagnosis of T2D, currently treated with glucose-lowering medications, age 30–75 years, and body mass index ≥ 30. The primary outcome is a binary measure of use of glucose-lowering medication. Secondary outcomes include A1C, anthropometrics and clinical blood markers. Discussion: There are inherent risks involved if patients with T2D who take glucose-lowering medications follow very low carbohydrate diets. This randomized controlled trial aims to determine whether engaging community pharmacists is a safe and effective way to deliver therapeutic carbohydrate restriction and reduce/eliminate the need for glucose-lowering medications in people with T2D. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03181165. Registered on 8 June 2017.
Enhanced Contour Description for People Detection in Images
Creators: name: Du, Xiaoyun
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2014
Subjects: People Detection
Variational LBP
Feature selection
Intersection kernel
Bootstrapping

description: People detection has been an attractive technology in computer vision. There are many useful applications in our daily life, for instance, intelligent surveillance and driver assistance system. People detection is a challenging matter as people adopt a wide range of poses, wear diverse clothes, and are visible in different kind of backgrounds with significant changes in illumination. In this thesis, some advanced techniques and powerful tools are presented in order to design a robust people detection system. First a baseline model is implemented by combining the Histogram of Oriented Gradients descriptor and linear Support Vector Machines. This baseline model obtains a good performance on the well-known INRIA dataset. Second an advanced model is proposed which has a two-layer cascade framework that achieves both accurate detection and lower computational complexity. For the first layer, the baseline model is used as a filter to generate several candidates. In this procedure, most positive samples survived and the majority of negative samples are rejected according to a preset threshold. The second layer uses a more discriminative model. We combine the Variational Local Binary Patterns descriptor, and the Histogram of Oriented Gradients descriptor as a new discriminative feature. Furthermore multi-scale feature descriptors are used to improve the discriminative power of the Variational Local Binary Patterns feature. Then we perform Feature Selection using the Feature Generating Machine in order to generate a concise descriptor based on this concatenated feature. Moreover Histogram Intersection Kernel Support Vector Machines is employed as an efficient tool of classification. The bootstrapping algorithm is used in the training procedure to exploit the information of the dataset. Finally our approach has a good performance on the INRIA dataset, with results superior to the baseline model.
Supplementary document for Single-objective selective-volume illumination microscopy enables high-contrast light-field imaging - 5176634.pdf
Creators: name: Madaan, Sara
name: Dizon, Kevin
name: Jones, Matt
name: Zhong, Chenyang
name: Nadtochiy, Anna
name: Luu, Peter
name: Fraser, Scott
name: Truong, Thai
Publisher: name: Optica Publishing Group
Year: 2021
Subjects: Condensed Matter Imaging

description: Supplementary material
"A chiare lettere" - Un 11 febbraio particolare: Chiesa contro giudici?
Creators: name: Colaianni, Nicola
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: Nicola Colaianni è ordinario di Diritto ecclesiastico nella Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dell'Università degli Studi "Aldo Moro" di Bari.
description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 15 febbraio
Il paradigma della continuità come chiave di lettura dei rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa in Italia
Creators: name: Dalla Torre, Giuseppe
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: È il testo della relazione sul tema “I Patti Lateranensi: origine storica, novazione
costituzionale, significato attuale”, tenuta il 1° luglio 2011 presso la Biblioteca Provinciale
”N. Bernardini” di Lecce, nel quadro del ciclo di incontri promosso dal Dipartimento di
Studi Giuridici dell’Università del Salento sul tema generale: “L’unità d’Italia e la
costruzione dello Stato nazionale: profili politici, giuridici e culturali”.SOMMARIO: 1. Una premessa di metodo – 2. Un problema italiano; un problema non
solo italiano - 3. I Patti Lateranensi come sviluppo della Legge delle Guarentigie – 4. La
novazione costituzionale – 5. La revisione concordataria del 1984 – 6. Conclusioni.
description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 20 febbraio
Il potere normativo delle conferenze episcopali. Il can. 455 Cic alla luce della vicenda italiana
Creators: name: De Gregorio, Laura
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. I primi statuti della Cei - 3. Lo statuto del 1965 e l’attuazione delle disposizioni conciliari - 4. Responsabilità ed autonomia della Cei del post-Concilio: gli statuti del 1971 e del 1977 - 5. La Cei interlocutore ecclesiale dell’autorità civile - 6. Attualità e prospettive tra fine e inizio millennio. Gli statuti del 1998 e del 2000.
description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 27 febbraio
La procreazione artificiale nei recenti documenti della Chiesa Cattolica
Creators: name: Scopel, Laura
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: Il contributo è stato segnalato dalla Prof. Maria Fausta Maternini, che ne attesta la scientificità e originalità.SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione – 2. I criteri etici dell’Istruzione Donum Vitae – 3. Le risposte dell’Istruzione Donum Vitae agli interrogativi morali posti dalle tecniche di procreazione artificiale – 4. Contributi allo studio di quanto l’Istruzione Donum Vitae propone – 5. Il documento “Famiglia e procreazione umana” – 6. L’aggiornamento dell’Istruzione Donum Vitae approntato dall’Istruzione Dignitas Personae – 7. Conclusioni.
description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 27 febbraio
title: Sensitive and selective quantification of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in urine of the general population by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry
title: Sensitive and selective quantification of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in urine of the general population by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Connolly, Alison
name: Koslitz, Stephan
name: Conrad, André
name: Bury, Daniel
name: Kolossa-Gehring, Marike
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2020
Subjects: Glyphosat
Harn
Human-Biomonitoring

description: Glyphosate is the highest volume herbicide used worldwide, and its main biodegradation product is aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), both are listed as priority substances in the Human Biomonitoring for Europe (HBM4EU) initiative which aims at improving policy by filling knowledge gaps by targeted research. The objective of the current study was to advance the sensitivity of an existing gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analytical method to measure environmental population exposures. A 50% lower limit of quantification of 0.05 (my)g/L was achieved for both analytes by slight modifications in sample work-up, and use of another isotope labelled internal standard. In a pilot study, 41 urine samples from the general German population were analysed, of which glyphosate and AMPA could be quantified in 66% and 90% of the samples respectively, which is sufficient to reliably describe distributions of urinary concentrations in the non-occupationally exposed population. © 2020 The Authors
Combination of six individual derivatives of the pom-1 antibiofilm peptide doubles their efficacy against invasive and multi-resistant clinical isolates of the pathogenic yeast candida albicans
Creators: name: Häring, Michelle
name: Amann, Valerie
name: Kissmann, Ann-Kathrin
name: Herberger, Tilmann
name: Synatschke, Christopher
name: Kirsch-Pietz, Nicole
name: Perez-Erviti, Julio A.
name: Otero-Gonzalez, Anselmo J.
name: Morales-Vicente, Fidel
name: Andersson, Jakob
name: Weil, Tanja
name: Stenger, Steffen
name: Rodríguez, Armando
name: Ständker, Ludger
name: Rosenau, Frank
Publisher: name: Universität Ulm
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: antimicrobial peptides
subject: invasive clinical isolates
subject: combination therapy
subject: DDC 570 / Life sciences
subject: DDC 610 / Medicine & health
subject: Peptide antibiotics
subject: Kombinationstherapie

description: In previous studies, derivatives of the peptide Pom-1, which was originally extracted from the freshwater mollusk Pomacea poeyana, showed an exceptional ability to specifically inhibit biofilm formation of the laboratory strain ATCC 90028 as a model strain of the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. In follow-up, here, we demonstrate that the derivatives Pom-1A to Pom-1F are also active against biofilms of invasive clinical C. albicans isolates, including strains resistant against fluconazole and/or amphotericin B. However, efficacy varied strongly between the isolates, as indicated by large deviations in the experiments. This lack of robustness could be efficiently bypassed by using mixtures of all peptides. These mixed peptide preparations were active against biofilm formation of all the isolates with uniform efficacies, and the total peptide concentration could be halved compared to the original MIC of the individual peptides (2.5 µg/mL). Moreover, mixing the individual peptides restored the antifungal effect of fluconazole against fluconazole-resistant isolates even at 50% of the standard therapeutic concentration. Without having elucidated the reason for these synergistic effects of the peptides yet, both the gain of efficacy and the considerable increase in efficiency by combining the peptides indicate that Pom-1 and its derivatives in suitable formulations may play an important role as new antibiofilm antimycotics in the fight against invasive clinical infections with (multi-) resistant C. albicans.
Supplementary document for Weakly Supervised Anomaly Segmentation in Retinal OCT Images Using An Adversarial Learning Approach - 5176699.pdf
Creators: name: Shi, Guohua
name: Wang, Jing
name: Li, Wanyue
name: Chen, Yiwei
name: Fang, wangyi
name: Kong, Wen
name: He, Yi
Publisher: name: Optica Publishing Group
Year: 2025
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: Some supplemental images.
Effects of brief anoxia on the electrophysiology of neocortical neurons in vitro.
Creators: name: Rosen, Andrei S.
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 1996
Subjects: subject: Biology, Neuroscience.

description: Although the function of all mammalian central neurons is destroyed by prolonged lack of O$\sb2$, during briefer exposures neurons from different regions show differential vulnerability. Pyramidal neurons from the neocortex are reported as some of the most sensitive to anoxia. Using intracellular recording techniques in current clamp mode, the effects of brief anoxia (4-6 min replacement of O$\sb2$ by N$\sb2$) were studied in pyramidal neurons of layers II-III from adult rat neocortical slices. Changes of passive membrane properties (V$\sb{\rm R}$ and R$\sb{\rm N}$) and of synaptic potentials (EPSPs and IPSPs) induced by anoxia have been investigated together with the possible mechanisms underlying these changes. Characteristically, brief anoxia induced in all tested neurons a moderate depolarization (AD) (3-5 mV), accompanied by a small to moderate (20%) decrease in R$\sb{\rm N}$. The ionic substrate of AD has not been entirely elucidated, but the results of experiments involving the Na$\sp+$ channel blocker TTX, Na$\sp+$ substitution, and excitatory amino acid (EAA) antagonists (KYN, DL-APV, MCPG) strongly suggest that a major factor responsible for AD is a Na$\sp+$ influx, mainly through EAA-activated channels of the "non-NMDA" (AMPA/kainate) type. However, since it is most probable that AD is a mixed ionic phenomenon, other conductances and intracellular cation accumulation are likely to be involved. Anoxia invariably induced a reversible depression of the evoked post-synaptic potentials, with both fast and slow IPSPs showing an increased sensitivity as compared to the EPSPs. Among the latter, the polysynaptic late EPSP component was more sensitive (reversible block) than the monosynaptic early EPSP (60-70% reduction). The mechanisms responsible for PSP depression were shown to be both pre- and post-synaptic in origin, with a more important contribution of the former--the process most likely involved being presynaptic inhibition mediated by adenosine activation of A$\sb1$ receptors, as shown by the protective effect of the A$\sb1$ antagonist, 8-CPT. Among other protective antianoxic measures investigated, creatine pre-incubation and attempts to activate the ATP-sensitive K$\sp+$ channels with diazoxide were shown to be ineffective. Changes in temperature between 26 and 37.5$\sp\circ$C (from the control temperature of 33.5$\sp\circ$C) showed, however, a good correlation with the anoxic events (i.e., warming accentuated and cooling diminished the effects of anoxia). Therefore, relative hypothermia (26$\sp\circ$C) proved to be the only measure capable of fully stabilizing the membrane potential and preserving the PSP amplitude during the anoxic challenge.
Le intese fantasma
Creators: name: Albisetti, Alessandro
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: SOMMARIO: 1. Le intese del 2007: la disciplina matrimoniale – 2. Quali prospettive
per il matrimonio religioso civilmente valido.

description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 5 marzo
The ecological consequences of rainforest expansion into fire-excluded open forests of eastern Australia
Creators: name: Baker, Andrew G.
Publisher: name: Southern Cross University, Forest Research Centre
Year: 2021
Subjects: Fire frequency
Alternative stable states
Succession
Woody encroachment

description: The expansion of rainforest pioneer trees into long-unburnt open forests is a global phenomenon and widely reported in high rainfall regions of Australia. However, impacts on Australian open forest biodiversity have been little studied beyond the tropics. In this thesis, I asked whether an invading midstorey of rainforest pioneers had adverse impacts on communities of open forest flora and fauna, and on ecosystem function, by examining heathy Eucalypt forest with contrasting fire frequencies and levels of rainforest-invasion in the Bundjalung Wilderness Area of northern NSW.
description: Where rainforest pioneers dominated the midstorey, understorey plant species richness was halved, and ground cover and density of open forest specialists were reduced by ~90% compared to the uninvaded state. Rainforest-invaded open forest also had lower insectivorous bat activity (63% lower) and species richness (35% lower). Forest flammability was also sharply reduced by rainforest pioneers through near-elimination of dense grassy (graminoid) and heathy understorey fuels in exchange for sparse rainforest saplings with less-flammable foliage and crown structure.
description: These findings suggest that rainforest pioneers are ecosystem engineers that modify open forest fuel properties, initiating a positive fire-suppression feedback that facilitates their persistence and the continued transition to a fire-resistant closed forest.
description: I also examined fire-resilience traits among 228 taxa of woody rainforest plants burnt in the extensive 2019-20 bushfires of eastern Australia to determine the reversibility of rainforest-invasion when fire ultimately returns to long-unburnt open forest. Most taxa survived fire by resprouting and/or fire-cued seedling recruitment, and resprouting rates were high across all size classes, including in small rainforest plants (≤1 cm DBH, ≤1m tall).
description: These findings suggest that rainforest plants which invade long-unburnt open forests may quickly become resistant to removal by future fires, allowing rapid re-establishment of midstorey cover from established root stocks.
description: The observed declines in open forest flora, fauna and ecosystem function occurred well before recommended maximum fire-intervals for dry open forest, casting doubt on the suitability of existing guidelines in high rainfall regions. To conserve open forest biodiversity, this research suggests that fires should be of sufficient frequency to prevent a dense rainforest midstorey from eliminating open forest flora, fauna and the understorey fuels that underpin open forest function.
Strategic analysis for Flocast Australia Limited to enter the Vietnamese market
Creators: name: Vu, QuynhNga
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: Many companies today must think about the internationalization for their business if they are to be successful and competitive. There are various ways to enter international markets and this research is about formulating strategies for an Australian company to enter the Vietnamese market. Flocast Limited is an Australian company, which has manufactured and exported bronze and iron since 1962. Vietnam has a predictable political environment, a high steady rate of economic growth. The Vietnamese government has relatively effective macro-economic policies. However, the country remains a difficult market and a complex business operation. In order to formulate strategies for Flocast to enter the Vietnamese market, the internal environment of the company and external environment in Vietnam were analyzed using standard analytical frameworks such as PAST and PEST analyses in order to disclose Flocast’s strengths and weaknesses and investigate Vietnam’s potential as a market. Appropriate strategies were formulated by using TOWS and Grand Strategy matrixes. The research utilizes both primary and secondary data to help in these environmental assessments. Primary research involved interviews with Flocast’s managing director and another director as well as staff surveys. Secondary data collected from various sources such as industry reports, country reports, working papers and other publications. The study found that Flocast currently has strong competitive advantage in Australia and in the markets where it participates. It has no major weaknesses that would prevent it expanding into Vietnam and the current product range is suitable. There is not sufficient finance for Flocast, however, to expand into Europe, where a new product ranges would be needed. Three appropriate strategies were formulated for Flocast as well as three implementation plans and one 'supportive strategy' to enable the company to be successful. The recommended strategy for Flocast is to export existing products, supported by a strategy of utilizing Flocast’s strong adaptability. It is believed that these strategies will not only exploit opportunities that are presented to Flocast but also help to minimize the company’s minors internal weaknesses and potential external threats.
Open Data and Collaboration in Action
Creators: name: Praag, Cassandra Gould Van
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020

description: Talk given as part of a workshop in Our Networks Conference 2020 on "the past, present, and future of building our own network infrastructures". Workshop Abstract: https://github.com/ournetworks/2020-submissions/issues/38 As we enter the final decade of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we have an opportunity to accelerate our progress towards this goal, by more rigorously collecting, analyzing and applying good-quality data to shape programmes that can bring us closer to ending access to digital divide in all its forms. Open data is a critical enabler. The session will bring together the open data community to learn, share, plan and collaborate on the future of open data in the context of COVID-19. The unique nature of the event is to enable participants from various interdisciplinary backgrounds to define strategies that advance open data globally and locally, with the vision that attendees will take their new insights back to their home institutions to grow a vibrant open data community. The session will include Keynote addresses, Q&A sessions and networking breaks
Note su religione e sfera pubblica tra Costituzione italiana e  Convenzione europea “dei diritti dell’uomo”
Creators: name: Vari, Filippo
Publisher: name: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale
Year: 2012

description: Contributo apparso sul numero V della Rivista, edita da Giappichelli, Civiltà Europea
dell’Università Europea di Roma (con articoli, sul rapporto tra potere pubblico e
religione, di F.J. Borrego Borrego, L. Franchini,  J.-C. Ricci, A. Palma,  C. Vigna), che si
pubblica, con qualche adattamento di forma, a richiesta dell’Autore e con il consenso
della Direzione della Rivista.
description: Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2012: 12 marzo
Videos for paper "Bifunctional Co-based Catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis: Descriptors affecting the product distribution"
Creators: name: (:Unkn) Unknown
Publisher: name: Universität Ulm
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: DDC 540 / Chemistry & allied sciences
subject: Tomography
subject: Transmission electron microscopy
subject: Tomography
subject: Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
subject: Tomografie
subject: Durchstrahlungselektronenmikroskopie

description: Videos reconstructed from 3D transmission electron tomography data of Co/zeolite bifunctional catalysts. Both video files supplement the publication by Straß-Eifert, van der Wal, Hernandez Mejia, Weber, Yoshida, Zecevic, de Jong, and Güttel, Bifunctional Co-based Catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis: Descriptors affecting the product distribution, ChemCatChem, 2021, accepted April 6, 2021, doi:10.1002/cctc.202100270. File 'CoatHZSM5-small.avi' refers to material 'Co@HZSM5-HT' in Figure 4 (subfigures 1.1 - 1.4) of the original publication. File 'CoatmHZSM5-small.avi' refers to material 'Co@mHZSM5-HT' in Figure 4 (subfigures 2.1 - 2.4) of the original publication.
Real-time Hand Gesture Detection and Recognition for Human Computer Interaction
Creators: name: Dardas, Nasser Hasan Abdel-Qader
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2012
Subjects: Posture recognition
Gesture recognition
Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT)
K-means
Bag-of-features
Support Vector Machine (SVM)
Human-computer interaction

description: This thesis focuses on bare hand gesture recognition by proposing a new architecture to solve the problem of real-time vision-based hand detection, tracking, and gesture recognition for interaction with an application via hand gestures. The first stage of our system allows detecting and tracking a bare hand in a cluttered background using face subtraction, skin detection and contour comparison. The second stage allows recognizing hand gestures using bag-of-features and multi-class Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. Finally, a grammar has been developed to generate gesture commands for application control. Our hand gesture recognition system consists of two steps: offline training and online testing. In the training stage, after extracting the keypoints for every training image using the Scale Invariance Feature Transform (SIFT), a vector quantization technique will map keypoints from every training image into a unified dimensional histogram vector (bag-of-words) after K-means clustering. This histogram is treated as an input vector for a multi-class SVM to build the classifier. In the testing stage, for every frame captured from a webcam, the hand is detected using my algorithm. Then, the keypoints are extracted for every small image that contains the detected hand posture and fed into the cluster model to map them into a bag-of-words vector, which is fed into the multi-class SVM classifier to recognize the hand gesture. Another hand gesture recognition system was proposed using Principle Components Analysis (PCA). The most eigenvectors and weights of training images are determined. In the testing stage, the hand posture is detected for every frame using my algorithm. Then, the small image that contains the detected hand is projected onto the most eigenvectors of training images to form its test weights. Finally, the minimum Euclidean distance is determined among the test weights and the training weights of each training image to recognize the hand gesture. Two application of gesture-based interaction with a 3D gaming virtual environment were implemented. The exertion videogame makes use of a stationary bicycle as one of the main inputs for game playing. The user can control and direct left-right movement and shooting actions in the game by a set of hand gesture commands, while in the second game, the user can control and direct a helicopter over the city by a set of hand gesture commands.
Remote Sensing Data Analytics with the Udocker Container Tool using Multi-GPU Deep Learning Systems
Creators: name: Cavallaro, Gabriele
name: Kozlov, Valentin
name: Götz, Markus
name: Riedel, Morris
Publisher: name: Karlsruhe
Year: 2019
Subjects: Containers
uDocker
multi-GPU
deep learning
classification
remote sensing

description: Multi-GPU systems are in continuous development to deal with the challenges of intensive computational big data problems. On the one hand, parallel architectures provide a tremendous computation capacity and outstanding scalability. On the other hand, the production path in multi-user environments faces several roadblocks since they do not grant root privileges to the users. Containers provide flexible strategies for packing, deploying and running isolated application processes within multi-user systems and enable scientific reproducibility. This paper describes the usage and advantages that the uDocker container tool offers for the development of deep learning models in the described context. The experimental results show that uDocker is more transparent to deploy for less tech-savvy researchers and allows the application to achieve processing time with negligible overhead compared to an uncontainerized environment.
Hatte Leutnant Gustl Hunger? Einige späte Bemerkungen zur Entstehung des inneren Monologs bei Arthur Schnitzler und Knut Hamsun
Creators: name: Pottbeckers, Jörg
Publisher: name: Studia austriaca
Year: 2012

description: Arthur Schnitzler’s Leutnant Gustl is regarded as the first instance of interior monologue in German-language literature. According to the general opinion, Edouard Dujardin, who is widely regarded as the “inventor” of the interior monologue, gave Schnitzler the narratological inspiration for his famous text. But, as will be shown by the following comparative analysis, Knut Hamsun’s novel Hunger plays, in fact, a significant role in the development of the interior monologue in the literature around the turn of the century, especially thanks to its narrative techniques.
description: Studia austriaca, Vol 20 (2012)
Intersection of National Policies on Nurses' Work in District Health Care Systems in Kenya
Creators: name: Pamela, Juma
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2011
Subjects: Kenya
Nurses
Policies

description: Health policy reforms have dominated health systems in African countries for over three decades. However, the impacts of these policies on nurses’ work, as well as the extent to which the nurses are involved in the policy decisions, have not been well documented. As the largest group of health professionals in the workforce, nurses’ services are necessary to achieve population health outcomes. Thus, nurses’ work concerns related to the reform of national policies should be identified and addressed. This study was carried out to examine how the national policy reforms have impacted on nurses’ work in Kenyan district health care systems and how nurses have been involved in policy processes in the health care system. Critical theory and feminist critical policy analysis perspectives guided the study. The study was implemented in two phases. The first phase involved qualitative interviews with 32 decision makers and nurses in the public health care system. The second phase involved a comparative quantitative survey of nurses and nurse managers in two districts. A sample of 169 nurses was interviewed in two district hospitals to generate data for this second phase of the study. This thesis contains three manuscripts. The first manuscript presents a qualitative analysis of the impact of policies on nurses’ work (Chapter 2). The second manuscript presents qualitative results of how nurses were involved in policy processes at various levels of the health care system (Chapter 3). The third manuscript presents results of a quantitative survey of frontline nurses’ experiences with the policy reforms, comparing two districts (Chapter 4). An integrative discussion of key findings from all these manuscripts forms the last chapter of the thesis. The findings revealed that policies meant to enhance access to services like decentralization and primary health care were more enabling to nurses’ work while those aimed at enhancing efficiency like structural adjustment programs were more constraining. The constraints included poor work environments, unchanging work conditions, increased responsibilities and dilemmas in providing care. These constraints were experienced more by nurses in the district that was poorly resourced and had poor health indicators than the district that had better resources and better health indicators. The results suggest that inadequate involvement of nurses in policy processes is a reason why their work concerns have not been addressed. There are recommendations to improve nurses’ work in the context of policy reform and to improve nurses’ abilities to participate in policy processes.
A low-dispersion survey spectrograph (LDSS-2) for the William Herschel Telescope
Creators: name: Allingtonsmith, Jeremy
name: Breare, Mike
name: Ellis, Richard
name: Gellatly, Dave
name: Glazebrook, Karl
name: Jorden, Paul
name: Maclean, John
name: Oates, Paddy
name: Shaw, Graham
name: Tanvir, Nial
name: Taylor, Keith
name: Taylor, Philip
name: Webster, John
name: Worswick, Sue
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: LDSS-2 is a wide-field, multiaperture spectrograph recently installed on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) in La Palma. The spectrograph has high system throughput (including the telescope and atmosphere) of similar to 20% at blaze. The field of view is 11.5 arcmin, allowing it to produce spectra of several tens of objects simultaneously at spectral resolutions up to R = 1000. The multiaperture masks are of exceptional quality and can be designed and manufactured rapidly at the telescope to improve target-mask registration and observational flexibility. This paper describes the instrument, the mask manufacturing facility, and the observing procedures required to acquire the target fields. Finally it presents examples of data obtained during the first commissioning run.
Genetic and Pharmacologic Inhibition of Cellular Inhibitor of Apoptosis 1 (cIAP1) Protein Expression Protects Against Denervation-Induced Skeletal Muscle Atrophy In Vivo
Creators: name: Lejmi Mrad, Rim
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2016
Subjects: Cellular inhibitor of apoptosis
skeletal muscle atrophy
NF-kB signaling pathway
TWEAK/Fn14 system

description: Skeletal muscle atrophy is a debilitating condition caused by pathological conditions including cancer cachexia, disuse and denervation. Disuse atrophy is characterized by reduction in fiber size, fiber-type change and induction of markers of atrophy such as MuRF1 and Fn14. Recent studies have focused on understanding the fundamental role of signalling pathways and the proteolytic system in response to muscle atrophy. Unfortunately the exact mechanisms behind atrophy remain poorly understood. I recently demonstrated that cIAP1 and/or cIAP2 proteins are critical regulators of NF-kB activation, which has been shown to be involved in skeletal muscle atrophy. Here, I used genetic and pharmacological means to investigate the role of cIAP1 in a denervation-induced skeletal muscle atrophy model. Interestingly, I found that upon denervation loss of cIAP1 rescues muscle fiber size, prevents fiber-type changing and inhibits the expression of MuRF1 and Fn14. Moreover, treatment of mice with Smac mimetic compounds (SMC), a novel class of small molecule IAP antagonists, showed successful knockdown of cIAP1 in muscle and protects against denervation-induced muscle atrophy. Taken together, these data reveal that cIAP1 is both a novel mediator of skeletal muscle atrophy and an important therapeutic target.
Canadian Foreign Aid and the Helping Imperative: A Delinked Cosmopolitan Perspective
Creators: name: Barnett, Calla
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2016
Subjects: post-development
decolonial
delinked cosmopolitanism
discourse analysis
legitimation
helping imperative

description: This thesis examines the role of the helping imperative in Canadian foreign aid discourse. After weaving together post-development and decolonial theory and applying these theories to cosmopolitanism, I propose a reconstructed cosmopolitan theory - delinked cosmopolitanism - as a theoretical orientation for this analysis. In applying the discourse legitimation framework as an analytical tool, I conclude that the current discursive orientations of the Government of Canada are focused on helping while believing that Western ways of being, knowing and doing are the only way to live in the world. I then suggest possible applications of delinked cosmopolitanism and discourse analysis for future research, both in Canada and abroad, in order to support a possible shift in thinking and an improved ability to work across difference.
La “memoria attiva” come gioco delle identità nel romanzo «Suche nach M.» di Doron Rabinovici
Creators: name: Saletta, Ester
Publisher: name: Studia austriaca
Year: 2012

description: The following essay explores the theme of remembrance as a question of identity in Doron Rabinovici’s novel Suche nach M. The Austria Jewish author concentrates on the quest for self-determination through various means, which are determined by generational differences. While the generation of survivors sees remembrance of the Holocaust as a moment of silence, their children commemorate it through masquerades or carnivals. Rabinovici’s novel, with its emphasis on a collective search for identity, is an exemplary contribution
to Holocaust literature as a re-elaboration of Jewish cultural biblical tradition.
description: Studia austriaca, Vol 20 (2012)
The places of law in a self-employed person's wellbeing at work
Creators: name: Babbage, Emma
Publisher: name: Southern Cross University
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Law
subject: FOS: Law
subject: Wellbeing
subject: Self-employed
subject: Work

description: As individuals and organisations enter the post-COVID world, ways to wellbeing remain elusive. Workplace illness, injury and death continue to pervade the world of work. While the survival rates of small business have dropped, the rate of start-ups has grown. Whether a self-employed person in small business reaches to law in the kit of her flotation devices to not only survive – but thrive – at work is a question that is unlikely to be answered within the arena of the courts in Australia. Research about the place of law in a self-employed person’s wellbeing at work is urgently needed to contribute to doctrinal and experiential knowledge. This research aims to explore that place.
description: This research adopts Davies’ (2017) conceptualisation of law as plural material as seen through an expansive view not only of liability, but also the everyday practice of law and legal consciousness. This research is situated in the Northern Rivers region of far north-east New South Wales (‘NSW’), Australia because of the prevalence of entrepreneurship there and includes vignettes from interviews with 21 self-employed persons in that locale. Under s 19(5) of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), which is the enactment of the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2010 in NSW, a self-employed person owes herself the primary duty of self-care, in which she ‘must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, his or her own health and safety while at work’. This research asks how self-employed participants plurally materialise the primary duty of self-care in their wellbeing at work.
description: This research adopts Olson’s (2014) methodology of legal narratology to juxtapose the participants’ vignettes with the State law. The juxtaposition materialises three strands of legal argument of: (1) an outer cloak of liability for ‘health’ (s 19(5)) and/or ‘welfare’ (s 19(3)(e)) that at least partially covers the signified of participant self-employed persons’ wellbeing; (2) an inner slip of an intention for ‘welfare’ (ss 3(1)(a), 3(2) and long title) materialised through participants’ everyday practice of congruent risk management for ‘health and safety’ (s 19(5)) and wellbeing and/or promoting wellbeing as risk management (Tooma 2020) for ‘health and safety’ (s 19(5)); and (3) a lining of a legal consciousness of the legal self-regulation of wellbeing materialised through participants’ self-recognition of their own desires. Just as clothing signifies place, these plural materialisations of law signify the places of law in a self-employed person’s wellbeing at work.
Supplementary document for Full Wafer Scale Electroluminescence Properties of AlGaN-based Deep Ultraviolet LEDs with Different Well Widths - 5177164.pdf
Creators: name: Zhang, Yi
name: zhang, shuang
name: Xu, Linlin
name: Zhang, Huixue
name: wang, ange
name: Shan, Maocheng
name: Zheng, Zhihua
name: Wang, Hao
name: feng, wu
name: Dai, Jiangnan
Publisher: name: Optica Publishing Group
Year: 2025
Subjects: Photonics, Optoelectronics and Optical Communications

description: Supplemental material.
Educating Good Citizens: A Case Study of Citizenship Education in Four Multicultural High School Classrooms in Ontario
Creators: name: Molina Girón, Luz Alison
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2012
Subjects: citizenship education
multicultural education
citizenship

description: Providing citizenship education that reflects Canada’s diverse cultural make-up and that promotes common civic virtues is a challenging task. This research examines how citizenship education is practiced in Ontario, and how teachers’ instruction responds to the diversity found in their classrooms and Canadian society. This qualitative, multiple case study took place in four multicultural Grade 10 Civics classes in Ottawa. The research methodology included non-participant observations of classroom instruction, interviews with each civics teacher and 30 students, and citizenship education-related document analysis. The theories of conceptions of good citizenship (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and approaches to multicultural content integration (Banks, 2003) are the primary analytical lenses. Data analysis followed two phases: within-case and cross-case analyses (Stakes, 2006). Despite shared provincial guidelines, very different types of citizenship instruction occur, shaped by teachers’ personal conceptions of good citizenship. While all teachers stressed the importance of civic knowledge acquisition and aimed to educate active citizens, some emphasized the education of personally-responsible citizens, while others adopted either a participatory or justice-oriented approach to citizenship education. These distinct orientations lead to different approaches to teaching about active citizenship, ranging from an emphasis on conventional citizenship behaviours, to altruistically motivated make-a-difference citizenship participation, to a more thoughtful, politically-oriented citizenship participation that aims to produce societal change. Teachers’ differing conceptions of good citizenship also affect how their instruction responds to cultural diversity. While some teachers tended to avoid discussing issues of cultural and other forms of difference, others made them integral to their instruction. As such, a predominately personally-responsible approach to instruction tends to be blind to cultural difference. The participatory conception of citizenship education pays some attention to cultural difference, but aims to help marginalized people rather than address historical or structural inequality. A justice-oriented approach, in contrast, is the only approach that recognizes the importance of addressing the conflicts and tensions that exist in multicultural societies as an integral aspect of educating for democratic citizenship. This study advances new knowledge of the practice of citizenship education and offers valuable insights to developing education policy and strategies that strengthen educating engaged citizens for pluralistic, democratic societies.
title:  Non solo schiavi. La presenza dei musulmani a Roma in età moderna: il lavoro di un gruppo di ricerca
Creators: name: Caffiero, Marina
Publisher: name: RomaTrE-Press
Year: 2018

description: Gli studi  sulla presenza  dell’alterità, culturale e religiosa, a Roma in età moderna,  si sono molto concentrati  sulla presenza ebraica nella città, mentre assai meno studiata è la presenza di musulmani. L’intervento affronta la domanda  relativa  alla possibilità di una storia comparativa tra la presenza ebraica e quella musulmana nella città e descrive sia le ultime acquisizioni di un gruppo di ricerca che lavora su questo tema sulla base di fonti sia conosciute che inedite, sia le implicazioni anche assai  attuali del fenomeno poco noto, ma per nulla eccezionale, della presenza musulmana . Da questo punto di vista,  l'Italia, per la sua vicinanza sia ai Balcani di dominazione ottomana che ai paesi islamici affacciati sul Mediterraneo, risulta ovviamente essere un punto di riferimento ineludibile dal punto di vista geografico e da quello culturale.  E, in Italia,  risalta Roma non solo in quanto centro della cristianità, ma soprattutto come  sede sia di elaborazioni teologiche e politiche sulle diversità religiose, sia di concrete iniziative, di istituzioni specifiche e  di comportamenti  peculiari nei confronti degli esponenti di quelle diversità che proprio nella città convergevano.
description: Venire a Roma, restare a Roma. Forestieri e stranieri fra Quattro e Settecento